Hard News: Park Life
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at the expense of everyone in the area who doesn’t play golf
This.
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Seems like a very very large carpark over in the corner by the sports fields. Could that be a coincidence its near the Western Springs stadium an area losing trees (and carparking).
While the area is almost entirely open space now with a small golf buildings and car park , it will be less open space under these proposals plus major earthworks and loss of significant trees ( again) -
Russell Brown, in reply to
While the area is almost entirely open space now with a small golf buildings and car park , it will be less open space under these proposals plus major earthworks and loss of significant trees ( again)
“Almost entirely open space” on public land that isn’t available for public use. That’s the point. Keeping an 18-hole course represents a very big opportunity cost.
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Agreed that it is a scandal that public land has a private club on it, but why develop it at all? Unitec is busy planning to tarmac over as much of it’s site as it can, converting this space into a public park and linking it to Western Springs somehow would roughly double the green space to around 65 hectares, or alternatively give a Western Springs sized park on the other side of an area bisected by the North-Western motorway.
Maybe we need to stop the impetus to a greed-driven stampede to property development whenever a bit of green space is spotted…
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With the current pressure on primary schools in the region, and the proposal to convert Pasadena Intermediate school into a primary school, I went looking for land that could be used for a school. I wondered if there would be room for a primary school if Chamberlain Park gave up a few holes at the end of Sutherland Rd (ie the green blob in the west side of the above map). There would need to be a bridge over the motorway for access from Pt Chev, but there appears to be little other suitable land for siting a new primary school in the area.
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Playing fields are notorious dead zones apart from Saturday.
Not really going to be much public access for the largest component on the map, a golf driving range ( privately operated of course).
Then there is the site marked recreation centre, another privately operated facility, of which there are many in the area. No shortage of that for some reason.
Dont forget there still will be a 9 hole golf course, privately operated and restricted access.
Open public acess seems to be only around the fringes. So much for using that for an excuse.
Or maybe the existing golf course is closed at 4:30 and public allowed to use . At least it would be full open access space rather than this bantustan proposal we have shown. -
Russell Brown, in reply to
The Unitec campus isn't a park and already includes housing blocks. It's well-supplied with internal roading. I'm fine with housing development on it if it's done right.
And there are no plans for property development on Chamberlain Park. It's being enhanced as a public recreation area.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I wondered if there would be room for a primary school if Chamberlain Park gave up a few holes at the end of Sutherland Rd (ie the green blob in the west side of the above map).
That did occur to me.
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Steve Curtis, in reply to
Agreed that it is a scandal that public land has a private club on it
Not really, as the story says their lease expired. Wasnt really a private club either, as they operated as a open to public walk up golf course.
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[only partly tongue-in-cheek] My solution to the apparent shortage of urban building space is to turn all energy-greedy, limited access golf courses into new housing areas and public parks.
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Sacha, in reply to
apparent shortage of urban building space
all too real - and quality intensive residential development requires better provision of public recreational space to replace all those quarter-acre suburban yards.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Agreed that it is a scandal that public land has a private club on it
Not really, as the story says their lease expired.
And the land has been used for golf at least since WW2 (when it was used by the military).
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Ah. Turns out this proposal was in the Draft Eden-Albert 2014 plan and was the subject of submissions in August. The idea that this is a matter of the board leaving the community out doesn't wash.
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Chamberlain (and Takapuna) are special in that they bring golf to the masses, anybody with a borrowed set of clubs can just rock up and queue for a Tee off unlike most other courses on the Auckland isthmus.
It was also previously shrunk when the Northwestern was put through, the outer fences for Chamberlain were right across the road from Western Springs.
Surely some sort of walking/cycling trails could be incorporated into the golf course and access over or under the North Western motorway to it from Western Springs would be good.
A pool, Parnell style but heated for year round use, would be fantastic though.
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I knew nothing about this until the Campbell Live item. Since the sole purpose of the item was to make me outraged that the land could be used for anything other than golf, I am now fully in favour of such use, whatever it may be.
If the reporter from Campbell Live - or anybody else - would like me to take a more considered and informed view, next time consider informing me.
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I’m a little concerned over some of the logic here. If this land is publicly-owned and people are supposedly “prevented” from enjoying the use of it because golf is not their chosen pastime, it does not follow that change is “necessary”. If you applied that line of thought, then we should redevelop the zoo (because not everyone likes animals), all regional parks (for outdoor haters), public roads (some people don’t have cars), beaches (non-swimmers) etc etc.
I think we all understand the pressure on the last remaining open spaces that exist within that city. Once they are gone, they are gone. The proposal seems to me to be the start of “death by a thousand cuts”.
And, to Steve Curtis –
Playing fields are notorious dead zones apart from Saturday
– you obviously don’t drive past Seddon Fields. Very rarely is there not some form of activity taking place. It is a very positive “beating heart” of the local community. One of the enjoyable things about Auckland is being able to see trees and grass, or to be able to see further than the next high-rise shithole. Unless you are a property “developer” I guess.
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I'm always impressed by how well informed you are Russell. This time you score 10/10. To answer some of Steve Curtis's points... The carparking shown is part of a *proposal* that came from officers and has absolutely nothing to do with Western Springs stadium, or the loss of a relatively small number of carparks some distance away for the motorway works (assuming that happens). Rather than a loss of trees, there would be an increase under the proposals, as the area on the western side of the park reverted to wilderness with native plantings and wetlands. (That area would also form part of a corridor for birds from Roy Clements treeway through the Meola Creek path.) Playing fields are not ontorious deadzones in areas like ours. Albert-Eden has the largest shortfall in sportsfield capaicity (as well as the least amount of open space per capita) in the entire Auckland Region, as much as the whole north and south of Auckland put together. And please don't ask about neighbouring areas--they're next on the list for shortfall in sportsfield capacity. Any sportsfields we build will get an awful lot of use. More so in the future with the planned or proposed intensification (including Unitec, which has already priced ARU out of its site). Thanks for the opportunity Russell to correct some of the damage done by the unbalanced Campbell Live report.
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I live locally and can see a couple of negatives with redevelopment. Firstly the need for sports fields has been identified for the afterschool training sports (not weekend competition). This addition to rush hour traffic will cripple the already congested St Lukes Road especially when the SW16 link joins at Gt North Road and put more traffic on to the NW citybound. Secondly , who will use the passive recreation area? It probably won't be those locally, as the Rawalpindi reserve currently stands deserted and disused and closeby Western Springs would be much preferred to a former fairway.
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Cycle Action Auckland has also highlighted the potential for new walking and cycling paths:
Council is specifically asking whether the changes to the park should include new ways for people to pass through it – i.e. new walk & cycleways. We say yes, very strongly so! Currently, the Northwestern Cycleway runs along the northern edge of the park, but otherwise it is a big barrier for the local community. You can normally only enter at the main entrance, and thus for most people living around it, it might as well be closed.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Secondly , who will use the passive recreation area? It probably won’t be those locally, as the Rawalpindi reserve currently stands deserted and disused and closeby Western Springs would be much preferred to a former fairway.
But Rawalpindi Reserve is a small, stranded green space at the bottom of a dead-end street. I discovered it pretty much by accident one day, but you really have to know it's there. A redevelopment that linked up the whole neighbourhood with the park would be a completely different thing.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I’m always impressed by how well informed you are Russell. This time you score 10/10.
It really only took 10 minutes' searching. The information is all there to be found.
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Sacha, in reply to
A pool, Parnell style but heated for year round use, would be fantastic though
I believe Avondale is ahead in the decades-long queue for that, as is Otahuhu.
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Craig D, in reply to
I agree it would be better than Rawalpindi, but the fact remains that no case has been put forward in the council proposal for the success of such an area. It is simply "build it and they will come". I can also really endorse the "another school" idea. Gladstone Primary is bursting at seams at over 900 students with the students then scattering to Kingsland / Ponsonby and Pt Chevalier to find places for two years of intermediate. If the Unitec proposal goes ahead something will need to happen.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Also, how about building over the playing fields of all those high decile schools in Epsom? That'd probably fund the education budget for a few years.
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Sacha, in reply to
don't give them ideas. :)
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