Newcastle's parking pinch will come under the microscope after councillors voted to review the squeeze driving Novocastrians to distraction.
On Tuesday night, councillors voted 11-2 to review parking supply, time restrictions and enforcement from a neighbourhood-wide approach rather than at street level.
Independent councillor Peter Gittins said he wanted to look more closely at the cause of Newcastle's parking problems.
"The intention of this motion is to test the assumption that the whole issue of parking is one of management as opposed to supply," Cr Gittins said.
Part of the debate centred on whether the city lacks parking or is simply failing to make the best use of existing spaces.
City of Newcastle chief executive Jeremy Bath said private car park operators have told him that between 60 and 70 per cent of their car parks are vacant on a daily basis.
Independent councillor Mark Brooker said as the city undergoes an "unprecedented transformation", the council's strategy must keep up.
"This isn't just a minor headache, it is a significant economic issue," Cr Brooker said.
He said unrestricted parking after 5pm and on weekends allowed vehicles to occupy spaces needed by customers visiting nearby businesses.
The motion pointed to a 2019 City East Survey which found the council had "failed" to manage the knock-on effect of parking restrictions applied on a street basis in lieu of an area-wide approach.
The loss of the King Street car park, redevelopment of the former David Jones site, light rail and the city's residential and commercial boom were all cited as factors squeezing parking supply.
The review will focus on inner-city suburbs including Newcastle East, Newcastle West, Wickham and The Hill, as well as busy retail precincts such as Darby Street, The Junction and Hamilton.
Parking conditions around Lingard Hospital, John Hunter Hospital and the Mater Hospital will also be reviewed with a staged approach to see if changes are needed.
Greens councillor Charlotte McCabe argued creating more parking would only encourage more driving and worsen congestion.
She said most cars only carry one person and many trips are less than 10 kilometres.
"We definitely do not need to be driving a lot of the time for our trips," she said.
Liberal councillor Callum Pull disagreed, arguing the city needs more car parks.
"When you've got developments like the university building, or even the 400-plus bed university development that's going in ... without offering a single car park for them, it's going to cause issues in our parking system," he said.
Councillors also agreed to lobby local MPs for better public transport, arguing improved services were key to easing parking demand.
Labor councillor Paige Johnson said she had too often had to "recite the horrors" of Newcastle's public transport system.
"This would not happen in Sydney," she said.
"We know that until public transport gets better, sadly the parking squeeze and the freeze on momentum here will sadly continue."
Parking has long been a challenge in Newcastle, with Labor councillor Declan Clausen referencing a 1952 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate article about the issue.
Cr Clausen said that of the more than 10,000 council-managed on-street car parks, some 1100 of those are restricted.
"There is an opportunity for us to look at the way the system works as a whole, and I think that would be positive in trying to unlock more parking in the city centre," he said.
