Letters: Council to blame for demise of CBD

The downward slide of the CBD is solely the fault of council staff and many weak councillors over the past 30 years, a reader says. Photo/File.

Council to blame

Regarding Sonya Bateson's editorial (October 20, online). This column is unfair especially coming from a person and her colleagues who have written many articles about the demise of the CBD.

The downward slide of the CBD is solely the fault of council staff and many weak councillors over the past 30 years.

It started when the council permitted the construction of the many suburban shopping centres where we are now at the stage of, I believe, one of the most over-shopped cities in the southern hemisphere.

The other major hurdles for the CBD is the council's insistence of charging for parking only in the CBD, remembering everywhere else in the entire city is free and their consistent removal and non-replacement of car parks.

Retailers are struggling to exist in the CBD as seen by the large number of empty shops, and fewer shops mean fewer people visiting.

On the positive side, the CBD now has the support of hardworking councillors Terry Molloy and John Robson, who appear to be making excellent progress towards helping make the CBD retail competitive with other shopping centres by making the parking user-friendly and by making better use of the available bus services.

(Abridged)
Bill Campbell
Tauranga

Tauranga South becoming an industrial area

Maureen Stark (Letters, October 22) writes about the encroachment of businesses in residential areas.

I live in Devonport Rd – between 15th and 16th Avenue – and all week (where there are no yellow lines) cars, parked, clog up nearby roads from, mainly, perhaps the biggest business in Tauranga, the Tauranga Hospital. Also, many businesses such as dentists, physios and hairdressers have moved into houses and set up shop, and it's getting worse.

Near my house, there are four or five businesses: a building company and three childcare businesses. All these have employee cars. Plunket has about 10 or 12.

So, the continual comings and goings of the traffic from all of these are a continual nuisance.

I visited the council a couple of years ago and asked how a person can buy a house and turn it into a business in a residential area.

The answer was as long as they get a resource consent, it's okay.

Is where I live zoned residential or not? The person who issues these resource consents should come and live here. Perhaps, then, they would not be so casual with their rubber stamp.

Tauranga South is becoming a widespread industrial area.

Angela Dold
Tauranga

National just attention-seeking

The National Party is merely attention seeking.

You have to admit that, for entertainment value, they now have First Baby Neve in spades.

Chris Brown
Tauranga