WESTFIELD has finally confirmed that pay parking will be introduced at its Garden City centre in Mt Gravatt. The tariffs will apply after July 7.

The retail giant today announced 'controlled parking' would be introduced following on from its introduction at Carindale last year and Chermside in 2010.

Shoppers will be charged $2 for the first half hour after the first three hours, which will be free.

The charge then increases by increments of $1 per subsequent half hour.

A full day will cost $20.

Staff will also face charges to park at the centre. They will be charged $3 per day, the same rate as their Carindale counterparts.

Westfield Garden City Centre Manager Jodie Gaske said the move was necessary to avoid commuters clogging up the centre's 4000 car parks.

"Westfield Garden City is in a large commercial hub,'' she said.

"We also have the largest bus interchange in Brisbane.. just under 2000 buses that come in and out of our bus depot every day. It puts a huge amount of pressure on our car parks from commuters wanting to park in our areas."

She declined to say how much revenue Westfield would generate from the scheme.

"Westfield's very committed to a capital investment to bring controlled parking in to support customers,'' she said.

The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association has launched legal action through Fair Work Australia to reimburse Westfield workers who pay to park, but Ms Gaske said she wasn't worried about a backlash from customers or workers.

"The general feedback from our customers for quite some time now is that they find it so difficult to shop with us and support our retailers that they're actually quite positive about paid parking,'' she said.

Westfield is planning to start construction on a $400m redevelopment of the centre in June that will see the centre expand by approximately 40,000 square metres to about 140,000.

The redevelopment will include 100 new speciality retailers, a new Myer department store and a new Target discount department store

An extra 1400 car parks will be built, bringing the total number of car parks to 6,600, all of which will be under the paid parking system.

The charges currently in place at Carindale are as follows:

0.0 - 3.0 Hours: FREE

3.0 - 3.5 Hours: $2.00

3.5 - 4.0 Hours: $3.00

4.0 - 4.5 Hours: $4.00

4.5 - 5.0 Hours: $6.00

Max. charge (7+ Hours): $20.00

Free entry after 6pm.

Free parking for disabled patrons.