PONSONBY PARK

Ponsonby Park - MARCH UPDATE

On 19 January 2022 Council provided our Community-Led Design (CLD) group with a new timeline for, and information about, the process for a staged development of Ponsonby Park, the new civic space at 254 Ponsonby Road.

We are delighted to share the good news from this official response - the Waitematā Local Board, at a workshop in December 2021, confirmed support for a staged approach to the redevelopment of 254 Ponsonby Road and staff will progress the project on this basis.

Budget will be allocated in Financial Year 2022/2023 for planning elements of the project including detailed design and community engagement; this is two years earlier than previously communicated. Funds for construction will be made available from Financial Year 2023/2024 onwards.

It was back in March 2016 that the Waitematā Local Board first embarked on the CLD process to establish Ponsonby Park, the new civic space at 254 Ponsonby Road. They did so to ensure the creation of an urban space that matched the needs of the local residents, businesses, and visitors. This month our volunteer CLD group will have been working for seven years to achieve the new civic space so we are thrilled council has provided the new and revised timeline for the realisation of the project.

We congratulate both the Waitematā Local Board and Auckland Council for their vision and foresight. By returning to a staged approach and bringing forward the development by two years, work on Ponsonby Park will commence in four months. This will be a great outcome for everyone.

By all metrics, the CLD process has been hugely successful and has resulted in the international award-winning* LandLAB, Park+ design. Our thanks to LandLAB and everyone who has participated in the process to date. The design (concept images featured on this page) includes; · The Park (a grassed lawn and gardens, 1410 m2) · The Pavilion (outdoor sheltered area, 222 m2) · The Plaza and lane (outdoor paved area, 807 m2) · O’Neill Street upgrade (734 m2) · New building (190 m2) · Public toilet block (60 m2) · Refurbished lighthouse (1st-floor feature, 120 m2)

In a world still reeling from the impacts of Covid-19, social connectedness is increasingly important and relevant. Ponsonby Park will be the common ground that enables everyone to come together to rest, relax and recreate - a place to meet new people or catch up with old friends, to enjoy some of the many activities, exhibitions and markets that the civic space will host.

These are the very things that build and nurture a community and are why Ponsonby Park is precisely the infrastructure and amenity the community has shown they want and need. The development of Ponsonby Park will create a new focus for the neighbourhood and it will be an attractor to the Ponsonby area that will support and help revitalise our local businesses too.

The Ponsonby Park development will commence in four months - exciting! (JENNIFER WARD)  PN

*In November 2018 LandLAB’s Park+ design won the international ‘World Architecture News – Future Civic category’ award. It was also shortlisted at the prestigious ‘World Architecture Festival’ in the “Future Civic’ category. (We look forward to the project winning the completed award in the future too.)

MELISSA LEE: Omicron and Auckland

Like many of you I’ve found it incredibly challenging to see our local businesses go through so much hardship due to Covid-19 over the past two years and Omicron hasn’t helped.

The Government has announced minimum wage increases in light of massive rising inflation and this will cause strain on small businesses who, with declining revenues and countless restrictions on trade, are finding it tougher than ever to keep their storefronts open. This hasn’t been helped by New Zealand dairies, supermarkets, and liquor stores seeing a 25.7% increase in victimisations and theft skyrocketing by over 32% in that time.

The blunt reality, as my colleague Simon Bridges put it, is that true economic prosperity to uplift Kiwi households doesn’t come from the flick of a pen on minimum wage but from an agenda to lift growth and productivity.

True community support comes from the safety of better crime prevention, not lockdowns. The cost of living is hitting home for many with basic supermarket items out of their price range and pleasures like going to cafes, restaurants and buying home supplies also out of price range, or inaccessible, due to the risk it could affect their chances at a home loan.

With everything Covid-19 has thrown at New Zealand, it is now clear Covid-19 and the Government’s ongoing response to it is throwing a cost of living crisis at us as well.

The strategy for Omicron is flawed with a lack of rapid antigen tests meaning whole townships or suburbs could shut down from one person’s close contact visit, and different government entities seem to have different policies in place confusing this for everyone.

The National position is clear: legalise all tests already approved in Australia, allow them to be sold in supermarkets and pharmacies, stop seizing tests ordered by the private sector, and allow any business to access them to get employees to return to work.

In summary, anyone who wants one should be able to get one. Looking to the South Island as I write this, many in the hospitality sector of Queenstown are now going to be out of action for days on end due to close contact events and delays in accessing testing for their staff, let alone isolation requirements.

The number of community events, ethnic festivals and concerts being cancelled for our city isn’t going to let-up anytime soon as long as New Zealand continues to take an outmoded approach to Covid-19.

In parliament the new sitting year has gone into full swing with select committees holding a microscope to crown entities and government departments. I’ve had the opportunity to scrutinise the government on a myriad of topics from content regulation to trade and tourism - you can watch this work here.

As summer becomes autumn, we need to remain hopeful better times are just around the corner for New Zealand.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me at MPLee@parliament.govt.nz if you have an issue locally or nationally you want heard in our parliament. (MELISSA LEE MP)  PN

E: mplee@parliament.govt.nz

If you require any assistance I and my office are always happy and ready to provide advice and support

Please get in touch on 09 520 0538 or at MPLee@parliament.govt.nz to make an appointment. Melissa Lee National List MP based in Auckland

MPLee@parliament.govt.nz • melissalee.co.nz • mpmelissalee

Funded by the Parliamentary Service. Authorised by Melissa Lee, Parliament Buildings, Wgtn.

DAVENPORTS LAW: TO GIFT, LOAN OR OWN?

Joe and Bianca had been married thirty years. They had two adult children, Mark who was 28 and Jenna who was 25. Mark had recently become engaged to Anna, his high school girlfriend, and they were hoping to buy their first home.

They had been saving hard, but like many young couples in 2022 couldn’t save quickly enough to match the rising market. They were also concerned about interest rates and where they might be heading. They both had their Kiwisaver, which they were planning on using for their first home.

Joe and Bianca had started their married life in a modest home in the early nineties. Although even at the time the price they had paid for their first home had seemed like a big commitment, they recognised it was nothing like what their kids were going to have to pay for something equivalent.

They remembered when they purchased an investment property in 2004 and Bianca couldn’t believe that they were paying three times the amount they had originally paid for their first home, simply for an investment property. However, both purchases and subsequent ones had paid off for them and now they were in their late ‘50s they had two investment properties as well as some money invested with a reputable managed funds company.

Bianca’s last surviving parent had unfortunately just passed away. Her parents had also done well from the property market over time and when they died, the basic house they had purchased on a quarter acre section in Takapuna in the ‘60s was worth a small fortune. Bianca felt that she and Joe were doing fine and decided to use some of her inheritance to help Mark and Anna (and Jenna in the future) into their first home.

Joe and Bianca’s friends gave them lots of advice as to how to structure the “Bank of Mum and Dad” advance. However, the idea that appealed the most to Bianca was taking a share in the property so that when the property was sold, she would take an increase in value in the property and would have at least grown the funds that she had been left. However, wisely she decided to go and take some legal advice from her and Joe’s lawyer. Their lawyer explained that there were a number of ways of

Tammy McLeod helping kids into property. The option of purchasing a share in the property in theory would work, but because of the bright-line test, if the property was sold within ten years, as the property wasn’t Bianca’s family home, any increase in value in her share would be taxable.

Their lawyer said this was a trap that many parents had unwittingly fallen into. The other downside to taking a share on the title was that the bank was likely to require Bianca to be a co-borrower of the funds that Mark and Anna would be borrowing to purchase the property, and at the very least would require a guarantee from Bianca.

If Bianca did want to have an interest in the value of the property, their lawyer said another way of doing it may be by a declaration of trust, where even though Mark and Anna’s names would be on the title, they would sign a separate document saying that they were holding a percentage of the property for Bianca.

This did appeal to Bianca, but in the end after mulling it over with Joe, she decided that as the money was a windfall to her, then it should just be passed on to Mark, and that she should keep no interest in the funds at all. It would simply be a gift from her (and really from her parents) to Mark.

However, while she loved Anna, she was mindful that she really did want Mark to benefit from the funds in the event that his and Anna’s relationship didn’t last the distance. She had a few friends whose husbands had taken half of their wives’ inheritance upon separation.

Her lawyer recommended that she make the gift conditional upon Mark entering into a contracting out agreement with Anna, saying that in the event that they separated, Mark would not only get the money Bianca was gifting to him back, but also any increase in value of the property proportionate to the gift.

In today’s world it is very common for parents to help their children into property. There are a number of ways of doing this and this article does not canvas them all, but the important thing is to make sure that you get legal advice to make sure that you do it in a way which protects both you and your children.