Plans for a multi-storey car park in the Orange central business district are up in the air.
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The problem with the proposed multi-storey Ophir Car Park was revealed as the council agreed to reverse its decision to shorten parking times in Lords Place following a backlash from businesses and residents.
Parallel parking spots in the street will now be increased from 15 minutes to half an hour and angle parks will be for one hour.
The multi-storey Ophir Car Park has been discussed as an option to solve parking issues in the city for years.
However, it was confirmed on Tuesday that no complying expressions of interest have been made for the project.
Councillor Kevin Duffy asked about the status of the car park during a discussion of parking in Lords Place in Tuesday's council meeting.
A council director responded and said the issue had been tabled for the closed meeting but she would answer the question without releasing any commercial in confidence information.
"We did not receive any complying expressions of interest for that site to use that site for a development because of a number of restrictions and the cost and some of the barriers," she said.
"That was a result of the expressions of interest program that we ran."
Calls for expressions of interest were made in January this year and included options for retail or office space, an entertainment facility or serviced apartments.
After hearing the news about the car park Cr Duffy slammed the Lords Place south upgrade.
"Lords Place is an absolute disaster, it's the wrong spot, it's as simple as that," he said.
Councillor Frances Kinghorne was also critical of the wording regarding parking vacancy rates and was concerned they were framed in a positive way.
"When there are high parking vacancy rates it is sort of spun as positive because 'it's done what we wanted it to do' but I feel like Blind Freddie could see that half an hour or 15 minutes was not going to be long enough for a physiotherapist appointment or a haircut or a lot of things," she said.
"There might be high parking vacancy rates because people aren't going there, they're going to get their coffee somewhere else or getting their haircut somewhere else.
"I don't necessarily think that it's a positive, I think that it is not very good for the businesses and I'm glad we're hopefully going to change this back.
Councillor Jack Evans also asked about when they furniture will be put in place on the decks.
He was told some businesses were putting their own furniture in but were concerned about the proximity of adjacent parallel parking spaces and are waiting for them to be closed off like the deck outside Nimrod's.
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