The group representing Salamanca Market stallholders says it was kept in the dark over a council plan to remove 16 parking spaces from a street leading into the precinct.
Stallholders Association president Nadia Calvert raised the concerns at a Hobart City Council workshop on Monday, as councillors voted to send the plan out for public consultation.
She said the market, the area’s busiest weekly user, had been overlooked.
“I do have some disappointment in that stallholders, as stakeholders of the market, have not yet been consulted and other businesses have,” she said.
“We would like and deserve consultation.”
The council, as first reported by Pulse, wants to turn Montpelier Retreat from what its report calls a “vehicle-dominated service corridor” into a “people-focused public space”.
The plan would make the lower section one-way, widen footpaths and add more greenery, including about 43 trees.
But Calvert said the loss of 16 parks would hurt, especially as other nearby parking disappears.
The market is also about to lose its Saturday parking at Parliament House, where the Rotary Club of Sullivan’s Cove has run the car park for 35 years.
Parliament has pulled the pin on that arrangement from June 30, following a recent precinct security review by a Joint House Committee.
Calvert said the nearby Moss Hotel would add more pressure, with 16 extra rooms needing parking.
“These 16 car parks in that area are desperately needed,” she said.
She said narrowing the street would create problems for vans, trailers, caravans and stallholder tractors, while the one-way layout could make market-day exits harder.
A council report said early feedback from landowners and businesses had been “uniformly positive” – but that was challenged at the meeting.
Alderman Marti Zucco told the committee one person he spoke to had not been told parking would be removed, while a major property owner had placed conditions on their support.
“We’ve got a lot of obstacles to get over,” he said.
Council staff said early talks had been kept deliberately small to get the idea moving and offered to fast-track a meeting with the stallholders.
Montpelier Retreat is one of four streetscape projects in the report linking Battery Point, Sandy Bay Road and Salamanca.
Wider community consultation is expected later this year.
