Parks group wants levy on developers

A parks lobby group says a compulsory levy on developers should be tapped to provide a seaside antidote to Auckland's crowded housing of the future.

The levy idea comes as the Auckland Regional Council and the North Shore City Council face renewed pressure to create a 400ha domain incorporating the Long Bay Regional Park.

Levying projects in booming Albany over the next five years would help to set up a $25 million kitty to buy more land, says the Long Bay-Okura Great Park Society.

Society convener David Gatward said the trend towards high-density housing meant people needed a large open space to escape to and roam.

"The slopes of the Long Bay hills afford the only significant patch of green along the East Coast Bays and should be saved and enhanced."

He said central Auckland had not been granted any extra recreational open space since the the 1901 gift of Cornwall Park. The Auckland Domain was formed in 1845.

The society would lobby ARC and the North Shore council to form a land acquisition fund and join all the Auckland councils to try to win Government backing for a great park.

Subdivisions pay 7.5 per cent of the value of additional sections as a contribution to reserves under new North Shore City development rules.

The council was unable to say how much it expected from the reserve levy.

North Shore parks committee chairwoman Margaret Miles said last night that levies were to buy reserves across the city.

This year's budget for new park land was $14.6 million, including $12.5 million for coastal land.

ARC parks chairwoman Sandra Coney said she was keen for the council to acquire new parks.

"I'm conscious of the fact that coastal land is becoming more valuable in leaps and bounds."

But the ARC also faced higher public transport costs and the best it could do for 2005-06 was to propose setting aside $500,000 to start the nucleus of a land acquisition fund.

What they spent

North Shore City, $46.24 million, over the last five years
Auckland Regional Council, $27.7 million, over the last three years, including land at Long Bay, Wenderholm, and Waitawa.