City Vision Leader Councillor Cath Casey has recklessly endorsed her team’s plan to ignore important council advice and proceed to reduce the amount of green space available to Aucklanders in the wider Mt Roskill area.

Council candidate Mark Thomas says the long-time councillor supports the Puketapapa Local Board decision to proceed with two development options for Hillsborough’s Monte Cecilia Park. This is despite council staff advising both contain high legal and financial risks, and neither providing for much needed open space to accommodate the areas’ growth.

“Cathy Casey has made it clear she will also ignore this advice if re-elected to the Auckland Council’s governing body in October”.

“In a new report, council staff presented four options to develop Monte Cecilia. Option 1, continuing to develop the site for open space, was the highest rated assessment with no/few risks.”

“The majority local board ignored this and selected options 2 and 3 which in addition to a loss of open space contain what the report called ‘high legal and financial risks’. The selected options would increase social housing from 25 units to up to 49 units.

“The report described the Liston Village area as high value open space and that Monte Cecilia was not functioning as a destination park because it is too small. However Casey chooses to ignore this in favour of expanded social housing on the site.”

However the report also says the governing body she has been a member of for nine years has not developed a policy in this area.

“So Casey and her team are making a $17-33million decision without an authorised policy approach. This is misguided and irresponsible.”

Mark Thomas says expanding social housing is very important, but it’s a government priority rather than a council one. The Roskill South Development project led by Housing NZ, only 5 minutes away, plans 3,000 new social housing homes. Cathy Casey and her team ignore this too.

“The City Vision team is also failing to engage the community effectively on this issue. Only 147 people submitted on the Local Board Plan in 2017 - one of the lowest levels in Auckland.”

“Casey and her team can not claim to speak for Puketapa/Mt Roskill on this issue when the community they currently represent are so dis-engaged.”

Ends.

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