By REBECCA WALSH
The name Otara may be dumped politically under a Manukau City Council proposal to reduce the number of wards in the city.
But the name change - along with the thought of Howick and Otara residents living in the same ward - is opposed by some councillors in both suburbs.
The corporate business committee will today consider a recommendation from an independent panel that the council should expand the Otara ward to include parts of East Tamaki, Howick and Pakuranga and rename it Te Irirangi.
Otara ward councillor Reuben Riki said he opposed the name change because Otara had developed its own unique community.
"It's too much of a shift. For those people who live outside the community that may be a bit odd, but people who live here actually like that name and associate with it.
"There are no gains in developing a new community identity. Otara has that."
Mr Riki believed the name change was merely a smokescreen to appease those who had a negative image of Otara. He asked whether developers were behind the idea.
Howick councillor Ken Yee said people in the south of the suburb had more of a "community of interest" with Howick than Otara.
"They are more Howick people, if you like, than Otara people ... I don't think it's so much snobbery.
"If I can put it nicely, a lot of people over the past five to 10 years have invested hundreds of thousands in buying homes in Howick. They bought them thinking that they were going to live in Howick and stay in Howick, with the name Howick on their address."
Mr Yee said there was an image associated with Otara of poorer housing and higher crime rates.
Pakuranga councillor Keith Hyland was not happy about the extension of the Otara ward as Pakuranga wanted to extend its area and representation.
However, another Otara councillor, Len Brown, said that if the council accepted the panel's recommendations the name change made sense as it recognised that the ward included people who had no connection with Otara.
Otara Mainstreet Association spokeswoman Mary Gush said she would support the name change. Te Irirangi was the name of the paramount chief of the area.
She was more concerned about increased representation for the Otara community on the council. The panel recommends the number of councillors be increased from two to three.
The panel also suggests reducing the number of city wards from seven to six.
The move to dump the Otara name follows a decision in 1995 by the Representation Commission to abolish the proposed Otara seat, which contained most of Otara and Papatoetoe.
Instead it put Otara, southern Howick and part of Papatoetoe into a new electorate, Manukau East.
At the time residents of the Golflands subdivision complained that their Otara telephone prefixes were knocking thousands of dollars off their property values.
Dump Otara plan has neighbours twitching
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