A Rotorua business owner who launched a petition asking the council to introduce free parking in the CBD says she's disappointed the petition failed but understands the reasons behind the decision.

The Rotorua Lakes Council's Operations and Monitoring Committee met today to discuss the petition and vote on the motion 'That Rotorua Lakes Council make parking free in the CBD to support businesses”.

But, councillors voted 7-3 against the motion, with one councillor, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, abstaining from voting.

Those against the motion said it was not specific enough and they were not prepared to allow city-wide free parking without some restrictions, such as time limits.

Councillors did say they were prepared to discuss the matter further, but due to the specific wording of the petition and the motion could not vote for it in its current form.

The motion was tabled by councillors Peter Bentley and Reynold Macpherson after an online petition was launched about a month ago by Portico Gallery managing director Susan Jory.

Susan Jory, managing director of Portico Gallery.

Jory was asked to speak to her petition, that now has more than 2600 signatures, and explained her position while council staff also presented councillors with a report covering all aspects of the parking situation over the last 10 years.

"The current system is unfair to local business and unworkable due to inherent flaws...it puts people off coming into the CBD," Jory told councillors.

Jory says she feels that unlimited free parking would not work but a 2-hour limit could be put in place to stop people parking in the same place all day.

Council staff explained that if the council were to change its current parking policy it would have to go out for public consultation and if the council broke its contract with i-Park (council's parking enforcement contractor) it would land the council with a $1.7 million bill to pay for the new parking system installed by i-Park to manage the city's parking.

Jory spoke to Rotorua Now after the meeting saying she was happy the petition had been heard and understood why the council had to make the decision it did.

"I never really thought it would go through as it is because of the way it was worded...but all those signatures and comments cannot be ignored.

"I think there is too much complacency right now because a lot of people are still on the wage subsidy and that won't last forever, we need to be looking further down the road."

Council staff told councillors that free parking had been trialled between 2013-15 but workers ended up parking outside or near their places of work stopping shoppers from using them.

Staff explained that 61 per cent of all the car parks in the CBD are already free, with varying time limits imposed to encourage turnover and that statistics show that 85 per cent of people parked in the CBD for less than an hour.

Councillor Raukawa-Tait says car parking is a "complex affair" and wondered if "we are antagonising our citizens with the system we have got".

Councillors Fisher Wang and Sandra Kai Fong asked if an option of time-limited free parking for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic could be considered.

Mayor Steve Chadwick said she would have signed the petition "if I didn't understand how it all worked" and asked staff if the council could be "more educative rather than punitive".

But Chadwick said she was not going to risk making "policy on the hoof" and the council was already talking to members of an inner-city focus group about how to cushion the blow post-Covid-19.

Mover of the motion, Peter Bentley, says the council should do all it can to help local business.

"Our inner-city retailers want honest, competent leadership. We saw today a refusal to consider options to assist our retailers," he says.

Councillor Reynold Macpherson voted for the motion saying "procedural tricks" were used to prevent amendments to the motion, "prevent free parking to support CBD businesses and prevent common ground emerging as the basis for a new parking policy".