Media Release
City Vision-Labour Councillors - Auckland City Council
For Immediate Release
Wednesday 5 August 2009

Council’s Future Planning Framework Flawed

Auckland City Council has now signed off its Future Planning Framework (FPF) as a ‘living document’ which will be able to be taken up by the new Auckland Council to form its new district plan into the future. Councillors Glenda Fryer and Leila Boyle, while welcoming the completion of the FPF, have pointed out errors and inconsistencies which the community will need to take up with their local community board and the Council’s City Development Committee.

Councillor Glenda Fryer says, “Despite my best efforts, the political process which formed the FPF has failed to take up community views about how the Auckland City Council will handle residential heritage and character protection into the future. Some presently Residential 1 zoned streets with character villas, such as Prospect Terrace and Walters Avenue, have been wrongly classified as areas for intensification. In a recent Colmar Brunton survey commissioned by the Auckland City Council, 89% of respondents considered it either important or very important to protect the heritage and character of Auckland. Only 1% thought it was very unimportant or not important, so clearly Aucklanders are very firm in their desire that existing character and heritage areas should not be compromised.

“The two historic town centres of Kingsland and Mt Eden Village are marked on the FPF for two to four storied apartment blocks but the existing Business 2 zoning only allows two stories. The current zoning means the heritage and character of these town centres is not compromised and allowing four storied apartments would not be welcomed by the community and local businesses who cherish the distinct nature of these town centres.”

Councillor Leila Boyle said, “I am concerned about the changes in the hierarchy of business centres in the Tamaki and Otahuhu areas. The FPF definitions of the different centres are that a Principal Centre’s ‘influence on land uses will extend up to 1000m from their centre’, while Town Centres will ‘act as a local hub and significantly influence land use within 800m’.

“At the very end of the process, from a few submitter and officer comments, Citizens and Ratepayers (C&R) councillors changed Glen Innes and Otahuhu from Principal Centres to Town Centres and Sylvia Park/Mt Wellington from a Town Centre to a Principal Centre. Despite my requests, C&R refused to change the maps in any way to reflect the changed influence and boundaries of these centres, meaning the definitions are inconsistent across the city and therefore meaningless. Now the intensification and greatly increased number of people within a kilometer radius will still be coming to Glen Innes and Otahuhu but C&R councillors continue to blindly refuse to provide the pool and community arts facilities that will be desperately needed in Otahuhu and Tamaki,” Councillor Boyle said.

“I now encourage concerned individuals and community groups to present aspects of the FPF they think are ill-conceived or incorrect to their local community board and I hope that the City Development Committee will then be able to simply make changes to this ‘living document’,” Councillor Fryer concluded.

ENDS

Additional Information:

Colmar Brunton Survey for Auckland City Council (2008)
Base sample size, n, was 1,451 respondents. Margin of error was 3.3%.

How important do you think it is to protect the heritage of Auckland?

Very important 55%
Important: 34%
Neither important nor unimportant 6%
Unimportant 1%
Very unimportant 0%
I don’t know 1%
Auckland City doesn’t have any heritage: 2%

How important do you think it is to protect the character of Auckland?

Very important 53%
Important: 36%
Neither important nor unimportant 6%
Unimportant 1%
Very unimportant 0%
I don’t know 1%
Auckland City doesn’t have any character: 2%

ENDS

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