Questions from a constituent had Coun. Carolyne Austin asking some pointed questions about whether people are abusing the service of the free vehicle charging station at Saywell Park in Lake Cowichan.
“Basically, the person was questioning who’s allowed to use it, how often, is there a fee applied, who’s paying the hydro, and that kind of thing. I did speak to the CAO about it and he thought we should review it.”
She said she’d been approached with concerns about vehicles parking there overnight.
“Is this something where we should be looking at signage about no overnight charging? It has to be free because of the original grant that we received,” she asked.
Works superintendent Nagi Rizk said, “it would be complicated but I think this station could be changed to allow for charging by card or debit or currency. We’d have to look into it.”
Coun. Tim McGonigle suggested, “We have a webcam within Saywell Park. We can see if people are abusing that service and go from there. To put it in for two or three vehicles a year, probably the funds could go towards snow removal rather than that.”
“It all boils down to how many people are using it,” said Coun. Lorna Vomacka. “But if a person is plugging it in at night they are working during the day and don’t have a chance to charge it during the day. The other thing is, is it not hooked up to a breaker? Could it be turned off through the visitors centre each night?”
Nagi Rizk asked, “What is the issue with parking overnight?”
Austin said the concern was that people could be plugging into the station overnight all the time.
“But they can only charge so much,” Rizk replied. “Are we talking about the station or parking overnight? There are other cars that park overnight and nobody’s talking about them. If it’s about getting something for free, everybody who uses it does. They can only charge [the battery] so much. If they park it for eight hours, it will only charge for four because that’s all the battery can take.”
“I’m just asking, what is the problem?” Rizk asked again. “I don’t see it’s a problem. I don’t see why we should go the extra mile for it.”
Coun. Tim McGonigle said, “Perhaps the public perception is that the person using it is bypassing their own hydro to use the free service that the town provides. I think that is the concern. Someone is getting something for free, and if it is a resident, why should he charge his electric charging station instead of his home and residence? That may not be the case but that is the perception. Once you get people perceiving that, then you get complaints, which is what we are seeing.”
“I think the intent of putting the charging station in such a public place was to allow visitors to use that facility,” said CAO Joe Fernandez. “It was not meant for residents.”
Coun. Day suggested that it might be a good idea to “just see where this goes” for the time being. “I agree with the superintendent here, what’s the issue? We put it in there for people to promote the use of electrical vehicles and now we’re going to shoo them away.”
Rizk said that normally owners of electric cars would have a hookup at home but “it is very possible they could be living in a condominium or a strata and maybe would not have a hookup. I totally agree that it’s not up to the taxpayers to subsidize the owners of these cars but at this time we hardly see them.”
He even suggested that tourists charging their cars overnight could be a good thing, as they are staying in the community.
