Tell us what’s important, Devonport-Takapuna

Our local board has come up with a three-year plan outlining the key initiatives we want to focus on.

Now we need your help to check if we’ve got it right.

Submissions must be received by 4pm Monday 14 August.

For more information go to: akhaveyoursay.co.nz/localboardplans

Ramraiders strike again

A Takapuna business has been ramraided for the second time in less than three months. A vehicle was used to force entry to Lake Rd vape store My Blitz around 1am on Saturday 15 July. Offenders stole items before fleeing the scene in a second vehicle, which police found abandoned soon after. The store was also ramraided on 4 May.

Phone fumble

A phone left in a ceiling cavity caused the brief adjournment of a DevonportTakapuna Local Board meeting in Takapuna last week. Workers who had earlier replaced ceiling tiles damaged by a leak sheepishly returned to the meeting room with their ladders when one realised he had left his mobile behind.

Park supporters sign up

A petition to save the military fortifications at Kennedy Park in Castor Bay has now topped 1500 signatures. Decisions on whether and how much to fund maintenance work on the World War II era tunnels and a dilapidated barracks building rest with the DevonportTakapuna Local Board. A demolition option, put forward by council staff, is off the table, due to heritage protections.

Chair says council would own library if it built in square

Council would own – not lease or rent – any combined community services and library hub if this was sited on the Takapuna town square, says Devonport-Takapuna Local Board chair, Toni van Tonder.

In response to an Observer story last issue – about an alternative local board plan to build another level on the current library for a hub there – van Tonder said it was wrong to say the more costly square option would be housed on floors of a privately-owned building.

“A community hub on the square would be owned outright by council, not rented or leased from a developer,” she told the paper.

The current board’s discussions about a hub have been in confidential workshops, meaning the public and the paper have not had access.

Eke Panuku proposed sitting the hub in three lower levels of a mixed-used development, including residential apartments, to the previous local board.

The issue is particularly relevant now, with the board seeking public feedback via its Local Board Plan consultation on the idea of levying a targeted rate to help pay for more modern community facilities.