Tauranga City Council seeks feedback on the use of public spaces

Tauranga City Council building. Photo / File

Tauranga City Council wants to know how residents would like to use parks, reserves and storm water reserves.

To ensure everyone has fair access to Tauranga's recreational spaces, the council wants to hear how people wish to use parks, reserves and stormwater reserves in the future.

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With a growing community and increased use and demand, it is time to review how the council manages the use of places and spaces that meets the needs of the community.

The aim is to ensure public land is available for everyone's benefit, and that it is consistently managed.

Tauranga City Council is seeking the community's view to inform the review of eight policies that set out how public places and spaces are managed for community, private and commercial purposes.

Tauranga mayor Tenby Powell asked the community to get involved at this early stage.

"In Tauranga we are lucky enough to have a large amount of public spaces like parks, reserves and stormwater reserves that we can all use in our day to day lives and enjoy.

"With a growing population and private land getting smaller, we have seen more demand for different types of uses of public land.

"This is an important piece of work that will help us to identify what can and can't be done on public land that we've got available.

"While ensuring fair and consistent access for everyone, we also want to make it easier for community groups, commercial and private users to access council land for various purposes," Powell said.

Following community feedback analysis a draft policy will be prepared for adoption and formal consultation in early to mid-2021.

This is a staged process, with further policies dealing with the use of council land coming up for review. The council will provide further information and ask the community for feedback on those in the next year.

Go to www.tauranga.govt.nz/councilland to find out how council land is currently being used and to have your say. The survey closes on Friday, October 23.