RICHARD NORTHEY, WAITEMATĀ LOCAL BOARD

Super Saturday at Graham Street

RICHARD NORTHEY: WAITEMATĀ LOCAL BOARD CHAIR

It was great to have a near normal summer holiday with our family together over Christmas before Omicron brought back tighter restrictions.

Our February 15 Waitematā Local Board business meeting was held virtually under Red Traffic Light Covid-19 restrictions. We heard proposals from the public for more extensive 'no mow areas', funded some mulch for voluntary tree planting after I and other board members wielded our shovels in Harry Dansey Park to spread mulch, set out the board’s applications for a plaza at Rose Road and for enhancing Wakefield Park, and reported to council on public views on important bylaws such as the signs bylaw and freedom camping.

In December Glenda Fryer, the highest polling unsuccessful candidate at the last election who had been appointed to the board vacancy, was appointed to portfolios, including Community, Filming Approvals, the Ponsonby Business Association, Deputy for Economic Development and Liaison for the St Mary’s Bay Association, with Adriana Avendaño Christie being appointed to most of the other vacated positions.

We also passed a motion seeking to ban any more helicopter pads in Auckland suburbs.

All the board members have been double jabbed, all eligible ones boosted, and we have produced a joint video urging everyone in Waitematā to do the same. In order to protect our health and those who are dearest to us it is vital for us all to become fully vaccinated, mask up when not home, and follow all medical and public health advice, including in the use of council facilities.

The board’s community clinic will be held virtually on 9 March from 7pm and those interested in participating in a dialogue with us should book a meeting time.

I can always be contacted at 021 534 546 or richard.northey@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Council will, from 28 February to 28 March, be consulting on our council and local board budget. Please let us know your views. Apart from the normal digital and hard copy budget response forms, we will have a special Waitematā Local Board hearing on Tuesday 22 March from 4.30pm for you to register to present your views to us.

Next year’s budget is proving to be another difficult one because of the depredations on council revenue caused by Covid-19 and also because of significant inflation increasing council’s costs. The board has advocated to retain our range of council services and to consult on a targeted rate to enable council to take more appropriate action to combat climate change. We also want your views on what our board should be doing and funding next financial year. Please share any ideas of what you want to happen locally.

Covid-19 has, both directly and indirectly, been the major cause of increased stress, crime, intimidation, and antisocial behaviour throughout Auckland, but particularly in our inner-city business districts. I have been pleased that the Business Association members, residents, police, local MPs, and councillors have joined local board members in working together endeavouring to restore security and reduce antisocial behaviour.

I am very pleased that the governing body of council has responded to our board’s and community advocacy and has approved progressing with the restoration of the Leys Institute Buildings. A project advisory group has already had three meetings over the summer. I am representing you on this group and it is including council staff, architects, representatives of the Leys family, the Friends of the Leys Institute, the Ponsonby Community Centre, the Little Leys Library, and the local residents associations. Progress will seem painstaking, but it is great that it is happening and will be done in a thorough and well-informed manner.

It is great that an improved walking track has been reopened through the Western Springs Forest. Consultation with the public, including neighbours, on whether or not to add a loop track, is now taking place. The board is totally open-minded on this proposal, so we are very much looking forward to hearing your views. These tracks are intended purely for walkers and not for cyclists.

Auckland Transport is also consulting now on proposals it has that it believes would make Richmond Road, Mill Road and Garnet Road safer and better. Find out more and have your say at www.at.govt.nz

We had a most enjoyable 'Good Citizens Awards' ceremony, although it had to be a digital one, on Friday 10 December. The selection panel, with external community representatives, had been very impressed with the voluntary community contributions of those they selected who had all gone beyond what is expected in service to their communities. The citations of the award members read out at the ceremony reinforced how diverse, impressive, and valuable these contributions were. (RICHARD NORTHEY, Chair, Waitematā Local Board)

Last month, without fanfare, Auckland Transport (AT) announced the re-launch of their failed cycleway plan Route 1 - Garnet Road, Old Mill Road, Surrey Crescent and Route 2 - Richmond Road and Surrey Crescent.

This grand plan includes spending over $30 million dollars to build five kms of separated cycleway parallel to the footpath.

AT's slick promotional brochure was designed to sell the already unpopular idea back to the same community that soundly rejected the plans over four years ago. With raised tables across every side street, relocated bus stops jutting into the roadway, parking removed from outside schools, shops and cafes, the traffic will be slowed to a crawl.

Our once free flowing roads will become congested and cluttered, an inner city obstacle course with massive main road humps, half bumps, plastic fluoro hit sticks (an eyesore!) and unforgiving traffic islands.

This all driven by an entrenched philosophy at Auckland Council and AT that is vigorously supported by Councillor Pippa Coom, Chris Darby and Richard Hills, hand in hand with the powerful lobby groups of Greater Auckland, Generation Zero and Bike Auckland, who have contacts in and outside of council at the highest level.

Last time they attempted to execute this plan the community stopped them felling mature street trees, halted the construction of the badly designed and unsafe cycleways and forced a rethink.

Unembarrassed by the West Lynn cycleway debacle these characters all shook off the failure like wet dogs in the rain. Concerned citizens stood on diggers to highlight the design issues and eventually forced the removal of the extremely dangerous traffic island at the top of Richmond Road. Community groups met with the authorities, tabled constructive ideas and pointed out environmental inconsistencies. They shouldered abuse from the peddle pushers who tried to dominate and bully everyone into their vision of a cargo bike future.

Now the tongue-in-cheek consultation starts again with less than 30 days for feedback. The public is expected to comb the detailed information buried deep on AT's website, make sense of it and comment coherently. Crickey, isn't it enough that we have a pandemic, soaring inflation, and a broken sewage system spewing faeces into the harbour every time it rains?

The Grey Lynn School safer speed experiment is a classic example of build it and the public can just put up with it. It was an ambush in the dead of night. Even the Police Sergeant AT called to remove us, agreed the road works were insane, but he had no power to stop the Auckland Transport juggernaut. There was no consultation with the public, no communication with local residents or businesses. Only supportive voices were invited to the closed school consultation while dissenters were ostracised and belittled.

Have you noticed the traffic jam every morning and afternoon outside Grey Lynn school? Carbon monoxide filling the air as parents park illegally while children disembark right into the designated cycleway.

Can we not be trusted to regulate our speed? Common sense says slow down near a school or pedestrian crossing. Perhaps providing every household with a free copy of the road code would be a cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

Why not subsidise second hand electric cars to save the planet? Better still, invest in hydrogen fuels of the future, but stop trying to drag us all back to 1900.

The voices of the lobby groups are loud and clear, filling the echo chamber of the cone head committees, amplified on National Radio and in main stream media. Ponsonby News seems to be the only broadsheet prepared to publish an alternative, whilst Coom and Co doggedly regulate roads and rules.

Where is the public record of feedback from the community re Route 1 and 2?

Creating congestion and street disruption will not force people out of their cars. This prevailing attitude will only cost ratepayers and make council approved contractors rich in the meantime.

With local body elections this year we must all become more informed and resolve this street battle. I believe we must learn to share our roads, develop empathy and respect for each other and encourage the free flow of movement that leads to a more open, transparent and accountable civil society.

Auckland Transport claim they value your feedback so I urge you to give it to them directly, write to projects@at.govt.nz then share that to saveourstreets2022@gmail.com so there is a public record of what you really think!

Lisa Prager, Westmere