In Response About Parking at Keith Hay Park [UPDATED]

Written by Ben Ross - Talking Auckland

Local Board Member Michael Wood Replies

 

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This morning the Whale Oil Blog site published a post about an apparent attempt to install parking meters at Keith Hay Park. The Whale Oil Post stated:

Our Mt Roskill correspondent reports:

Reporters on the scene at the new car park being created in Keith Hay Park, Mt Roskill have discovered that Len Brown’s plans for raising cash are in full swing.

The large public car parking area for people visiting the grounds, Tristar gym, and swimming pool is to have parking meters for every spot.

Locals are not impressed.

Parking meters in Keith Hay Park!

That park is named for my Great Uncle, Keith Hay, and he would be turning in his grave to see a council charging for car parks in a park.

Nowhere in the redevelopment paper for Keith Hay Park does it mention metered car parking.

The park caters for a wide range of informal and active recreation, which sometimes creates issues for people accessing the park.
a. The Arundel St car park is experiencing significant congestion at times, particularly related to use of the sports fields by the soccer club on Saturdays combined with programmes in the Cameron Pools and events held at TriStar Gymnastics;
b. We need to consider innovative ways of reducing congestion and managing traffic demand, bearing in mind that there is limited capacity for additional car parks. Possible ideas include, the staggering of matches on the park, incentivising car-pooling, and working with clubs to encourage walking, cycling, car-pooling, and public transport.
c. Recently there has been an extension to the closing times of the Arundel St annex car park to accommodate the demand during the football season. It is recognised that this car park has capacity that has not being fully utilised;
d. A parking survey undertaken recently has identified on busy Saturdays that at most of the time there is still some capacity in the southern parking areas and on-street parking availability in relative proximity to the park.
e. The development of State Highway 20 resulted in the loss of 120 car parks in the north of the park;
f. The Rainford St car park was developed in 2007/8 to replace the car park mentioned above, however, to date this is not being well utilised outside of weekend demand;
g. The 2003 concept plan included the development of a through road along the eastern side of the park from the Arundel St car park to Rainford St which would provide for peak demand parking for 120 vehicles. This has not been developed and is no longer supported by the Puketapapa Local Board;
h. The all-weather pedestrian and cycle paths around the park have been improved in recent years. However, further improvements to the internal pathways and connections to the surrounding community may be desirable. In particular, there is a need to address access through the Arundel St car park.

Even the Puketapapa Local Board plan makes no mention of this carpark tax grab

Source: LEN BROWN PARKING MADNESS [UPDATED] – http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2014/06/len-brown-parking-madness/

 

After the said post from Whale Oil was published it soon brought against itself sharp rebukes on Twitter from the respective Local Board overseeing the Keith Hay Park project. Surprised that a park would attract parking metres (usually in the form of Pay and Display) I sent some questions to the Puketapapa Local Board for which Chairman Michael Wood replied.

 

Below are my questions which Michael’s answers in red.

1) Can you give me some context around the Keith Hay parking construction such as:
  • Why is this happening?
  • How many parking spaces
  • Who will they be provided for
  • Who “commissioned” the project (like the Local Board or the main Council via Parks department)(links to documents will be helpful as I can link them directly to the blog as well)

In the 2010-13 term, the Puketapapa Local Board undertook a Concept Planning exercise for Keith Hay Park. The major drivers of this were; the fact that Council had recently acquired some new land adjoining the car park as compensation for land lost to SH20, the fact that the central car-parking area is very heavily used and was becoming extremely congested at times, the fact that the park is the Auckland isthmus’ busiest sports park and requires good long term planning to work well, and finally, the fact that Three Kings United football club has medium-term ambitions to build new clubrooms, which would alter the configuration of the park. Taking all of this into account, the Board felt that a comprehensive planning exercise was important.

The concept plan was carefully developed, with multiple stages of consultation involving park neighbours, resident sporting clubs, casual users, and the wider community. The plan was adopted in late 2012. There is long-term plan funding of around $2.5 million for implementation of the concept plan.

The concept plan expands the parking area a bit. I do not have the exact numbers with me now, but from memory the increase in parking spaces is from something 200 to 242 [confirmed yesterday] .

The parking spaces are available for all park users, and complement two other smaller parking areas. The parking area is most heavily used through the week by users at Cameron Pools and Tri-Star gymnasium, and then in the weekends when football and cricket attracts huge numbers to the park.

Here is a link to the document we put out when consulting on the Concept Plan. 

 

2) Are any of the parking spots at Keith Hay either:
  • Time restricted but “free”
  • Metered (so something like Pay and Display)

There are no parking spots that are or will be metred or charged for in any way. Cameron Slater’s assertion that there will be is either sloppy or malicious, and your readers can make their own determination about that.

The current carpark has time restrictions that are very loosely enforced. There is no intention to change this arrangement.

To confirm, parking will remain free. There has been absolutely no consideration of charging at any point.

 

3) Are there “congestion” issues (lack of) parking spaces at Keith Hay Park especially during the park’s peak season (sports events etc)
Yes, particularly at peak training times through the week, and Saturday mornings when the fields are fully used. The carpark extension will assist with this somewhat, but will not solve the problem completely.
4) Is the Local Board looking at putting in parking meters in the future at Keith Hay Park
No. I have a strong belief that practical access to our public spaces should be at no cost except in a very small number of cases, which apply to neither Keith Hay Park nor any other local park in Puketapapa.
5) Any issues with resulting traffic congestion in near by streets and thoroughfares as a result of parking at Keith Hay Park
Yes there are overflow issues at peak times on Saturday mornings. Again, the carpark extension will reduce but not eliminate this issue. For the most part residents are understanding.
6) How well is Keith Hay served by public and active transport modes. Are there plans in the future by the Local Board, Council or even Auckland Transport to “improve” these modes in the (near) future
This is something that we are very keen to explore. As a part of the Concept Plan we have collated information about public transport options and we are distributing these to clubs to encourage their members where possible to use PT. Bus routes are not immediately adjacent, but reasonably close (Dominion Rd and Stavely Rd). The major issue is that most traffic congestion occurs in weekends when many people are coming from further a field than the local community, and PT is often difficult for these users at these times.
We are also actively supporting local people to walk or cycle through the provision of improved infrastructure. The park has an extremely popular shared walk/cycle way around the perimeter that was installed about six years ago. The only problem has been that when built it did not run through the busy car park, meaning that pedestrians and cyclists had to negotiate a very busy car park as a part of their journey. The new upgrade solves this problem by running the walk/cycle way right through the carpark, completing the link. We have also worked with AT to develop Greenways links either side of Keith Hay Park as part of a Greenway that will link through from Waikowhai Reserve to the Mt Roskill Campus. This is a funded project and will be implemented next year.
7) Any other comments to the Whale Oil piece that I have might not covered in the above questions. 
Only to repeat that Cameron Slater’s piece is comprehensively wrong. He has put up a grudging retraction now. Ironically of course, the Concept Plan was signed off in the previous term, so had he been correct, it would have been a C&R majority Board that had agreed to charging for parking. Both the previous and current Boards have worked closely together on this important project with no partisan issues, so it is disappointing to see Cameron Slater attempting to manufacture something out of nothing. A part of the broader project will also include interpretive signage about former C&R mayor of Roskill Keith Hay.

 

—ends—

UPDATE: Included is a PDF with the Keith Hay Park concepts

 

 

I am aware the Mayoral Office might have been alerted to this situation and might form a response later on in reaction to the Whale Oil post.

In the mean time though Talking Auckland thanks Michael for his response to the questions posed.

 

Thoughts and questions can be left in the comment box below. Normal rules of the blog apply.