Tag: Local board of health

Colin Maiden Park to come under Public Ownership

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Colin Maiden Park transferred from Private to Public Ownership

 

Good news after a long campaign to have Colin Maiden Park in Tamaki converted over from private ownership (University of Auckland) to public ownership (Auckland Council).

From Auckland Council on the transfer:

Colin Maiden Park to stay in public ownership

 

Auckland Council has added Colin Maiden Park in St Johns to its parks network, ensuring this open space and sports field complex remains in public ownership and available to the people of Auckland forever.

The unconditional agreement with the University of Auckland means that the 20 hectare park will be taken over by council early next year, which allows the university to focus on plans for its new developments in the city centre and Newmarket. The park is being acquired for $60.7m.

Mayor Len Brown says this is one of the most significant urban park acquisitions in Auckland’s history and council’s decision to acquire the park will ensure that Aucklanders have access to this asset forever.

“We have acquired Colin Maiden Park for the people who use and enjoy it every day of the week, whether they are from Glen Innes, Glen Eden or Glenfield. We can all be proud that the last major piece of private open space on the isthmus has been retained for the people of Auckland,” he says.

 

The Chair of council’s Parks, Recreation and Sport Committee, Councillor Christine Fletcher, reflected on the significance of this decision to the community.

“Together with the netball centre and Ngahue Reserve, this decision creates an incredible 44 hectare sports and open space complex for Auckland. This rivals Western Springs or the Domain for scale and significance,” says Cr Fletcher.

Orakei Local Board Chair Desley Simpson expressed great pleasure and relief at the decision.

“We have honoured the opinions expressed by so many Orakei residents – the future of the park was the one of the most submitted-on issues in the draft Unitary Plan.

“Our community was particularly concerned that the park might become intensive housing. It is now guaranteed to remain as public open space and available to everybody,” says Ms Simpson.

 

The park will transfer to the council’s local and sports parks portfolio on 1 February 2014.

This acquisition was an unbudgeted item which has been factored into the draft Annual Plan 2014/15. Council has also agreed to explore the sale of three parcels of council-owned land around Colin Maiden Park, to assist with the cost of acquiring the park.

Sale of land will follow the relevant public consultation processes in the Reserves Act and the Local Government Act. If any land is sold, any existing uses and activities on that land will be provided for on Colin Maiden Park or in the same general area.

In the coming months, council will work with all current users of the park to discuss their existing arrangements and look at how we continue to work together. Long term management of the park will also be addressed through council and the local board’s planning processes.

—ends—

 

I believe congratulations are in order for Orakei Local Board Chairwoman Desley Simpson as the public figurehead that spearheaded the campaign to have Colin Maiden Park transferred to public ownership – securing its place as Open Space on the isthmus. Well done Delsey and co for a job well done 🙂

 

Now just to get the bureaucratic proceedings out-of-the-way and Auckland has a very large park secured for its future.

 

Updates, Holiday, and C&R Playing Same Old Again

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Will Be Away Next Week

 

I will be away next week from August 6 to the 10th in Tauranga on a nice mid year winter break. Looking at Council and Auckland Transport business next week there is nothing particularly heavy happening apart from the Transport Committee on the Wednesday. You can see my commentary on the upcoming meeting in the Transport Committee to Discuss Rail Patronage post.

In saying that and thanks (or a curse) to the Digital Age I will still be keeping an eye on things in Auckland if anything does crop up.

 

Act Honestly

Speaking of things cropping up it seems the Centre Right, more to the point C&R are back to their old politicking tricks again as the campaign draws on towards October.

I was aware there was the second and final Unitary Plan Mapping Workshop yesterday with the Councillors and the Local Boards. Looking at social media feeds at the timetable it was running from 9am until 1:45 with lunch about 12:10pm. And from the final remarks it seemed the workshop went well although I did pick up a comment on the planners being a tad hesitant on some proposed changes – it happens.

What caught my attention though was on Facebook was three Communities and Resident (C&R) incumbents (one councillor and two Local Board members) having a photo op and stating it was for preparation for the campaign. Out of curiosity I questioned Nigel Turnball the incumbent C&R Local Board member who planning to run alongside incumbent C&R Councillor Chris Fletcher for the Albert-Eden Ward seat (effectively trying to tip out Councillor Dr Cathy Casey) why they were not at the Unitary Plan Mapping Workshop.

I was told by Nigel that this was early morning session and that they did show up to the workshop yesterday. That was fine and I would have left it at that. However, literally by coincidence at the same time on Twitter I had Nigel’s Local Board counterpart’s mention that “they” (our photo op people) did not show up until lunch time (if that) and that the maps went away either then or not long after.

So I questioned Nigel again for clarification and I was told their photo op session was the day previous. A photo of a Unitary Plan map with pencil drawings was soon posted later. Now I would have left the whole affair at that and gone on to the next subject matter at hand at the time. But, when one gets alerted that your comments were deleted the suspicion alarms go up automatically. Sure enough the comment thread with my line of questions was removed. I would also suspect that the map photo would have come from the first Unitary Plan Mapping workshop rather than the second one if the maps were put away yesterday at the time they said they were.

Where am I going with this? C&R up to their old tricks again rather than being accountable as they keep harping to the Centre Left about.

What will get me at maximum suspicion automatically and very quickly is not the fact the comment line with the question line was deleted – although that does get suspicions up but, the fact that person strong in the “faith” and makes it publicly known either deleted or allowed someone to delete the questions rather than allowing the thread to stay put and others being the judge themselves.

Unfortunately I did not get a screenshot of the thread (although there were witnesses that saw my line of questioning) as I believed I would have no reason to do so – if the said person was acting with integrity. Obviously someone there was not and now the thread is gone.

My suspicions now? That these people who are critics of the Unitary Plan and rather vocal on it decided that a photo op was more important than working with their Local Board counterparts, their other Councillor, and the Planners in trying to get the maps more reflective of community feedback.

I have blasted Councillors Brewer and Coney for grandstanding at Auckland Plan Committee meetings on the Unitary Plan, and I let rip into Councillor Walker after his performance at the last committee while not at workshops.

I should be letting rip into these three Centre Right representatives for not being at a very critical mapping workshop. The last workshop where they can make changes to the maps before they come back out to the public in the formal notification process starting later this year.

Unacceptable from all three of them indeed and will not earn favourable light from this end any time soon.

There is a moral of the story here. Tell the truth for starters when questioned and don’t go deleting the comment thread on Facebook while one is paying attention as one was. Now one believes someone did have something to hide and was being dishonest about it. Otherwise the thread would have remained and most likely the person being a tad more truthful than what there were being in the first place.

It also does them no good when I am already naturally suspicious of the Centre Right and Right Wing and they go and decide to pull that stunt off. And it does not do anything better when I am also naturally suspicious of those who are more “conservative” in the Christian or Catholic faith and such person commits a rather shady act in the political realm.

 

I suppose those who are running for an elected position in Council can take the above as a warning. Act dishonestly and no favours will be earned in a hurry from here.

 

The voters are watching

Resolutions to the Special Character Zone

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Work Underway on the SCZ

 

While considerations and deliberations over Manukau are underway, another piece of work that I undertook with the Unitary Plan is also being worked on. Last month I gave a presentation to the Orakei Local Board in regards to concerns by St Heliers over Unitary Plan development in their area. Hence the Special Character Zone was born, and the Centralised Master Community Plan brought back out of the cupboard.

Two resolutions were passed by the Local Board that night and the SCZ work strengthened before it is taken around the rest of Auckland. The resolutions were (and is on public record):

OR/2013/84 Unitary Plan Zoning Issues
FILE REF CP2013/08075
AGENDA ITEM NO. 9.4
 
MOVED by Member DEC Simpson, seconded Member M Thomas:
a)      That the Orakei Local Board thanks Benjamin Ross for his presentation and asks his permission to forward the presentation to key stakeholders to possibly consider when they make their submissions to the Unitary Plan.
b)      That the Orakei Local Board asks regional and local planning officers for comment on the feasibility of Mr Ross’ proposed Special Character Zones (SCZ) and Centralised Master Community Plans (CMCP).

 

The Abridged Version of the SCZ-CMCP Presentation can be found in the embed below:

 

So now I await the officer feedback on the proposals. This will be important before the concept is taken to the Albert-Eden Local Board as a potential solution to the Mt Eden Village situation that is still unfolding. In the mean time submission compiling and writing continues

 

BEN ROSS : AUCKLAND

BR:AKL: Bring Well Managed Progress

The Unitary Plan: Bringing Change

Auckland: 2013 – OUR CITY, OUR CALL

 

 

Causalities of – The LTP?

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And Here Come the Causalities

 

 

The Long Term Plan 2012-2022 was adopted into existence earlier this year, setting the Council’s course on all things revenue and expenditure (yeah lets ignore the V8s and White Water-rafting for a few seconds). On the rates side; some of us got stung with large rates rises while others got nice rates decreases. All of us though got service and capital expenditure cuts when our respective Local Boards had to follow through on a 3% cut in their budgets per the Mayor’s “orders.”

Manurewa Local Board have been very vocal on what the funding cuts have meant capital expenditure wise (so money for community projects like playgrounds and upgrades to community facilities). Well it seems I have stumbled (via the NZH) across our first OPEX (so facilities funding in the operational costs side) casualties in the form of POSSIBLE library closures.

 

From the NZ Herald:

 

Cost cuts threaten two libraries

By Bernard Orsman

5:30 AM Monday Oct 1, 2012

 

Pressure goes on after mayor’s directive for all areas of city council to trim budgets by 3 per cent in election year.

 

Libraries in Snells Beach and Grey Lynn have been marked for closure as the result of a directive from Mayor Len Brown to reduce costs in what will be election year.

Snells Beach residents, many of whom are retirees, are bewildered and angry at murmurings the refurbished Mahurangi East Library in the community centre is closing.

More than 300 locals have signed a petition deploring the proposal and there is fighting talk by local politicians of chaining themselves to the building.

“We love our bright, welcoming, well-used library, the heart and soul of this mixed and growing community,” said local Sandra Garman.

The other locality in the cost-cutting sights of council library manager Allison Dobbie is the Grey Lynn library, housed in its original 1924 building on Great North Rd.

Waitemata Local Board chairman Shale Chambers said closing Grey Lynn library would be unwarranted, completely wrong and would cause pointless grief.

Mr Brown, through chief executive Doug McKay, has directed all council departments, local boards and council-owned bodies to cut their operating budgets by 3 per cent next year.

This is so Mr Brown can reduce the projected rates increase for his election-year budget to “well below 4 per cent”.

Mr Brown and Mr McKay have boasted about making $1.7 billion in savings and efficiencies over 10 years.

And for the first time they are calling for cuts to service levels. This has led Ms Dobbie to look at closing two of the council’s 55 libraries.

She did not return calls to comment about the pressure she was under to reduce library services.

In a written statement, Mr Brown said he doubted any libraries would be closed to reduce next year’s rates.

But he would not give a firm guarantee to Snells Beach and Grey Lynn library users

 

Article continues at NZH site

 

Okay so which way is it, we looking at library closures or not? And why is a guarantee not able to be given here – that to me sounds like that the libraries will close but not one has the balls to say so from the outset. Gee I feel the communities affected through being left in limbo over the state of their libraries.

 

But we all knew this kind of thing was coming under this Council with this failed Long Term Plan.

I suggest that we divert money from the CAPEX budget and sink it into the OPEX budget. The money for the Cruise Ship Terminal and the money for phase one for the Quay Street Boulevard would cover the libraries and other Local Board budgets for the next wee while to come (oh say 10 years).

And what about Quay Street Boulevard? Defer all work on it until 2020 but leave enough money behind for our engineers to get the traffic light phasing RIGHT and maybe some extra signage and pot plants.

 

Hey we all got to make sacrifices here and I am making a few suggestions that are win-wins all round here.

But then again win-wins and the simple things often escape Council and the bureaucrats – otherwise we would not have these problems would we?