El Poble Nou de Benitatxell, a municipality of barely 5,000 inhabitants, has ten bags of free public parking in the urban center that provide service to neighbors. Half of them have been created in the last two years with a clear mission: to anticipate future needs and ensure a basic service.
As the mayor, Miguel Ángel García, stated, “in the medium term, we hope to transform our municipality into a pedestrian-friendly, beautiful and green place with different urban actions and construction projects. Being aware of these future works, which in some cases will occupy land that is now parking, such as at the school, a provision has been made so that there is no shortage of parking spaces.
Thus, to the Capelletes car parks (which have been completely rehabilitated recently), Pou street, Molls street, Mercat, Cemetery and the old ones for the schools, five new ones have been added: the new one for the school, the one on Avenida de Valencia, the one on Carrer dels Furs, the one with the football field and a future that will be created on the entrance road to the municipality through Xàbia when the access roundabout to Cumbre del Sol is enabled.
In most cases, the land of these car parks belongs to private owners with whom the City Council has renewed or entered into new contracts. In the case of old car parks, the contracts have been stabilized by extending the agreements to a minimum of between 7 and 10 years. This is because until now, as García explained, the City Council had been making use of these lands with renewable one-year contracts, which gave this basic service instability. “If the owner had considered that he no longer wanted or was not interested in continuing to lease, the municipality could have been left without an important amount of parking from one day to the next. And we wanted to avoid that and give the car parks solidity and permanence”.
The City Council had been paying an average of 0.6 euros per square meter on urban land for parking lots already inherited from the previous government, so this price has been maintained for all contracts, both old and new. In this way, all owners are paid the same amount per m2 and comparative grievances are avoided.
Although it is true that the increase in parking bags has increased the monthly costs for this purpose, this increase has been offset by the increase in income through other channels, such as the collection of an extra €227,000 in inspections of the new construction tax (ICIO), the agreement with the Lady Elizabeth school to pay 458,814 euros for the roundabout access to Cumbre del Sol or other rentals of municipal assets.
Likewise, continuing with the forecasts for the future, the government is awaiting the resolution of the application for a grant from the DUS 5,000 Program of European funds valued at close to 850,000 euros to finance an action whose objective is to reform and adapt six of the car parks.
