The Federation of Belgian Parkings deplores plans of Brussels Secretary Huytenbroek

The Federation of Belgian Parkings deplores the plan of Brussels Secretary of Environment Evelyne Huytebroeck (Ecolo) to tax company car parks. As a result to this plan 25,000 to 55,000 parking spaces will disappear in Brussels. Owners will have the choice to pay either an annual fee of € 450/per parking space or to open the car parks for public use.

The plans of Secretary of Environment Huytebroeck, has a huge impact on various domains. This involves the following risks:

• Employment: in Brussels located companies might consider leaving Brussels. Suboptimal taking into account the unemployment rate over  20%; of which more than 50% is younger than 25 years;
• Quality standards: there will be 2 kind of car parks with different kind of security standards. The public car parks that have to respect the strict rules and requirements and the private ones which won’t have to follow these rules;
• Competition: the threat for competition is real as private car park owners don’t have to invest in security and are not in compliance with the rules and requirements for public car parks;
• Mobility: there are no solutions for the existing problems. Nothing will change without investing in public transport and transit car parks.

The FBP asks Secretary of Environment Huytebroeck to evaluate the impact of her proposal together with the concerned representatives of the sector.