A tax on “parklets”, big optional maintenance fees for sporting groups and schools using the park lands, and a levy on major events are all included in the Adelaide City Council’s budget for 2013/14.

The State Government established 15 parklets – rectangular miniature parks with a bench and a single tree – along Bank Street in the city earlier this year in a bid to bring more life to the street.

The parklets are designed to add a pleasant lunch space to otherwise-harsh concrete streetscapes.

But it would appear the parklets’ free lunch is now over.

Each little rectangle of vibrancy will now attract a $39 “parklet fee” from council. The levy is expected to raise $585 a year.

The budget was approved by a council committee last night and will now go to full council for a final vote.

Also included in the budget is a set of new fees for using the council’s sports fields.

Educational institutions, including the schools and university clubs that use the fields, will each be slugged $12,300 a year if they choose to hand over maintenance to the council. Clubs face a similar optional charge of $6,150.

A council spokesperson said the fees would cover maintenance, and would be optional if the sporting clubs didn’t want to maintain the spaces themselves.

“To date, all sporting licence holders have been required to undertake their own maintenance,” the spokesperson told InDaily.

“This year council is introducing a new fee for schools and sporting associations, which give sporting license holders the option for council to do the maintenance and reflect the actual costs of maintaining a sports field.

“Normally, licence holders pay for maintenance through their own funding.”

A new fee is being introduced targeting very large ticketed events run on council land.

Currently, the council charges $16,250 for ticketed commercial events with a capacity of more than 20,000.

The budget proposes more than doubling that to $33,800 for events with more than 30,000 people attending on a single day.

The council says the increased fee covers the larger space required for big festivals.

“The proposed fee is representative of the larger area an event of this size occupies within the park lands and therefore reflects the level of coordination and maintenance of the park lands and surrounding areas required for a large event such as a music concert or festival.”