Category: Hot Discussion

An issue causing hot discussion either here in the blog or in the wider community

LGOIMA Request Out – Manukau Car Park

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Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act Request on Manukau Public Car Park is Out

 

 

Recently I had filed a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request to Auckland Council over the business case for the now Auckland Transport owned and operated Manukau City Centre Public Car Parking Building:

Time for a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act Request

 

It is time to file another Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request to the Auckland Council. This time the LGOIMA request will be on the recently opened Auckland Transport public car park building in Manukau which I reported on this morning. The request I will be filing will be for the originalbusiness case presented to the former Manukau City Council (under Mayor Len Brown) on this $14m building before it was carried over as a legacy project by today’s Auckland Council.

I am curious to what the business case was for this parking building in trying to understand why the former Manukau City Council went ahead with this project and possibly why Auckland Council did not stop it.

I’ll be keeping the readers up to date on the request – whether it is accepted or rejected by Council officials.

But in any case it is time to take a peek and what was the methodology behind the construction of this parking building in Manukau City Centre! 

 

And so the information requested has come in today and is posted (as four attachments) below.

 

 

This is the revised version

 

 

 

 

Now I am still reading the documents, but on first glance I think we have just been sold down the road initially with this building if we do not get any more high density development around Manukau soon (the Manukau South Rail Link adds another dynamic to the mix as well).

 

However check this out from AT’s website in the Ronwood Avenue Parking Building:

Ronwood Avenue car park

Last reviewed: 10/12/2012 11:55 a.m.

Car park location: Corner Ronwood and Davies Avenue, Manukau  – entrance from Ronwood Avenue

Parking description:  Multi-storey parking facility with a Vehicle Height Clearance of 2.1m. Eight levels with 676 spaces.

Car park features:

  • System for quick and easy parking (space availability signage by level)
  • Well lit
  • Clean and tidy
  • CCTV cameras that link through to a central control room monitored by security personnel.

 

Contact us about this car parking facility, or if you require immediate assistance in the car park building, press the blue “assistance” button located on the payment machines.

Hours  |   Tariffs  |  Lease Parking  |  Debit Card  |   Parking Vouchers  |   Ways to Pay  |

Normal operating hours 

​Day of the week ​Opens ​Closes
Monday to Friday 6.00am​ ​9.00pm
​Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays ​Closed ​

Note: Customers can park their cars in the building for 24 hours or longer, but can only exit before the last exit or opening times. See Other Parking rates to work out the cost of leaving your car overnight. For example, should you park your car in the building after 5pm on Friday night, and remove it on Monday morning at 6am, you will pay the $5 evening rate for each night it is in the building ($15 in total).

 

Tariffs

The following tariffs are a guideline only and subject to change. Refer to the schedule of fees at the car park entry.

Casual parking (Monday – Friday)

​Casual parking ​ ​ ​
0 – 1 hour​ ​$1 1 – 2 hours $2.00
2 – 3 hours $3.00 3 – 4 hours $4.00
4 – 5 hours $5.00 Max daily rate​ $6.00
* Lost ticket fee​ ​$40.00 ​ ​

* If customer loses their parking ticket, an instant $40.00 fee will be charged to be released from the car park.

 

Other Parking

Other parking​ ​Tariff ​Times & Conditions
Early bird parking​ $4.00​ Weekdays only

Enter and pay before 9.30am

Availability during this time is on a first come basis until full​

Levels 1 and 2 only
Evening rate​ $5.00​ Enter after 5.00pm – valid until 6.00am (following morning)

One entry, one exit

Pay at the machine​
​Lease Parking

Monthly lease deals (incl. GST)

See application forms for lease parking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ​Concession

$150.00

 Level 3

No reserved allocated space -“first come – first served”
Global concession

$360.00​

 ​
Reserved allocated (undercover)

$250.00

 Level G​
Reserved allocated (external)

$160.00

 Level G​
Reserved unallocated

$200.00​

 Level 4
Debit card​ Coded for denominations $20.00 to $200.00.

Rechargeable.​

 Contact us for more information
​Parking vouchers See casual rates above Available in 1,2,3 hour; half or full day periods, parking vouchers are used at the pay machine together with the entry ticket.

Request via fax or contact us ​
​Ways to pay Automatic payment machines can take Visa, Mastercard, Diners card and EFTPOS payments, as well as cash.

Help is only a button push away if required.

 ​

 

* If customer loses their parking ticket, an instant $40.00 fee will be charged to be released from the car park.

 

 

So what methodology was used? Love to seriously know

And I would really love to know how the diminished operating hours and parking tariffs compared to the original and revised Business Case studies are meant to assist in paying off the building as well as building a “sustainable” positive cash flow for Auckland Transport and Auckland Council. Now remember the parking building’s parking tariffs have already been slashed to these current levels to match or even underpin the All Day Park and Display street parking around Manukau. Even then that has not enticed people off the street and into the building (and it wouldn’t for me either).

I also have to ask, it is packed at Westfield Manukau Mall with Christmas shoppers and will be this weekend. Have AT even thought of opening the building this weekend to catch the overflow – you know a win-win for AT and Westfield? Probably not. So while you the shopper go round and around looking for a park, you have a perfectly empty dead parking building just sitting there – NICE ONE AUCKLAND TRANSPORT!

 

Why does Cabbage Boat come to mind here folks.

 

More in this business case later.

City Centre Future Access Study

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City Centre Future Access Study – The Reports

 

And so Auckland Council has released the City Centre Future Access Study or CCFAS. Now you can find the files from the Auckland Council website or (and I know one of the files is pretty chunky in size) you can read the embeds below to save on your bandwidth:

 

CCFAS – Graphic Summary

 

CCFAS – Section 1 of 2

 

CCFAS – Section 2 of 2

 

As I said in an earlier post, it shall take some time to go through all this before I run commentary on it.

But for now – happy reading

 

 

 

 

Be Right Back

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Coming Soon

 

Apologies for the lack of posts recently – things have been a bit more flat put than I like at the moment, diverting my attention away from BR:AKL commentary.

 

In saying that, things going on behind the scenes and across Social Media have still being happening with myself engaged in a constructive conversation with Ports of Auckland over the port review and future plans for our port. As of today I am also now reviewing the release of the City Centre Future Access Study which has just been released by Mayor Len Brown, and already spun for their own agendas by Councillor Brewer and the NZ National Party (which is currently in government). While Auckland Council has released the report (the pdf files are at the bottom of the webpage), my initial reaction until I have personally reviewed the files are the following:

Yes I am seeing the spin from all sides on the CRL debate after the CCFAS report was released by the Mayor. Conclusion, time to get someone else to bring the project through on a much better delivery plan that includes timetable and costs...

 

So not to worry folks, as soon as things calm down and normality is restored I shall be back running the commentary again – especially around Port of Auckland and the CCFAS Study.

 

Be seeing you soon – oh and love this hot summer weather here too 😀

 

And the current position I am taking on the CRL can be found currently HERE!

 

Advancement in Rail

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Pukekohe Electrification Builds Steam,

 

While

 

City Rail Link is Safe

 

 

Okay the subtitle for this post – Pukekohe Electrification Builds Steam is a nice play on words seeming the trains will be electrics, not steam engines.

Puns aside I managed to attend the back-end of the Transport Committee today after attending the first part of the Papakura Local Board meeting this morning. As I walked into the Transport Committee meeting this morning I must have just come into a pile of excitement and some Auckland Transport “moments” as there was quite a pitched debate going on. Now with the AT moment – I shall cover that in another post but for the moment let’s talk Pukekohe.

 

It has been mentioned since I reported on the November Transport Committee that steam is building (all hail the English language) to get the rail line from Papakura (where the current electrification will end) to Pukekohe electrified, as well as building two new stations at Drury and Paerata – both complete with bus bays and Park and Ride facilities. Now the cost of this project stands at $102m and has a Benefit Cost Ratio of 2.1. So for every dollar put in, you get $2.10 in investment return. Now for more on the actual project, please read the agenda below AND the case for Pukekohe Electrification also below.

 

Now apart from Councillor Casey’s sidetrack into the V8s in which depending on class of train, you can move between 284-700 passengers per train between Papakura to Pukekohe (answering that question of hers) the Transport Committee has thrown their full weight behind the Electrification and Station building project which (as Councillor Fletcher put it) an exciting moment for those in Counties (and in part South) Auckland. Now of course at $102m, Auckland Transport and the Council Strategy and Finance Committee (who oversee all things money within Council) are going to have to err rearrange budgets and finances to get the project within the current (oh I hate this saying – thanks Ruth Richardson) 2012-2022 Long Term Plan Fiscal Envelope. That is unless a special request is done to lug the project in there and seek extra money from the ratepayers – a move not wise as it creates precedent and makes the LTP a redundant exercise.

So Council and AT are going to have to have a long conversation on all things money as something from the budget is going to have to be dropped or put back. Nasty I know but hey, even Rebekka and I have to do it to our budget and finances at home when a capital project comes up outside the standard project – something else in that budget is just going to have to be put back.

 

However the wheels of progress are turning and fail the Governing Body doing a total back-flip, we should see the electrification extended to Pukekohe by 2018. Exciting times ahead

Oh any chance of squeezing in the $4m Manukau South (Rail) Link to be included with this project – just asking.

 

As for the City Rail Link

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I can safely say and be personally reassured that the City Rail Link is safe on the Council side of things (Central Government is something else) and that the project will advance from the Council side – although what exact time frame won’t actually be known until around 2014 when the new Council is installed and up and running. Now this is of course we do not get a total flip-out on Council and have every single new Councillor anti-rail.

However conversations I have had has given me this personal reassurance that the CRL will advance – subject to Central Government funding of course and that this project is supported by the majority of the Centre Left and Centre Right despite rumblings in the media and social media.

I am pleased ideology is being put behind in a particular case and that pragmatism and forward vision is rather in play instead. And whoever did release that draft report which curtailed the CRL has probably done more harm than good out of the exercise, so I am not particularly impressed and neither are others.

 

So we go forward and work continues on this multi-billion dollar mega project. Yes there are questions and work still be needing to be answered and done – but at least come hell or high-water this critical project continues to advance.

 

I give a nod and thanks to a particular individual for giving me that reassurance – for that I am thankful for (and I believe the city would be as well).

 

Agenda for Transport Committee – December 2012

 

Pukekohe Electrification Case