OPINION
An angry group of citizens turned up to an Auckland Council meeting a few weeks ago. The council was selling a small park in their suburb, probably to a developer who would put up townhouses.
Local residents and members of the local board were there to support a motion by councillor Sharon Stewart to reverse the decision.
On the face of it, this was a test of basic council values. In a climate crisis and with housing density growing, don't we need all the green spaces we can get?
As the debate warmed up, the values in play turned out to be a lot more complicated than you might think. The fate of this little park has much to reveal about what's at stake as our council voting papers start arriving this Friday.
The park, or reserve, doesn't have a name. It's a vacant site in Pakuranga about the size of three sections, with the legal title 9R Fortyfoot Lane. It slopes and has a few undistinguished trees, but no playground equipment or any other facilities. Right now it's a boggy mess, unusable by anyone.
In drier weather, though, kids play there, people walk their dogs off leash and it's a shortcut to Sunnyhills Primary School. The locals hold Christmas parties, barbecues and other community events.
Fortyfoot Lane itself is a cul de sac with a dozen or so houses. Several more properties back on to the reserve. Most of the sections are largish, with mature trees, back yards and very large front lawns that stretch out to the street in the American style, without fences.
The cul de sac is also very wide, with trees planted in the middle of the turning area. It's a quiet street in a very green part of the city.
If the park goes, asked another resident, "Where will the children play?" Others were concerned that townhouses would bring extra traffic and demand for parking into the street. Some worried that might impede the rubbish trucks.
The protesters felt ignored. "They just don't listen," said one. "They do what they want."
"The only reason they're doing this," another suggested, "is they're trying to manage the deficit."
It is true Auckland Council is managing a drastic shortfall in its income, caused by Covid. Towards the middle of 2020, councillors, local board members and officials worked long and hard to find ways to cope with a $900 million loss of expected revenue. The result was the "emergency budget", adopted in July for the 2020/21 financial year.
That effort is ongoing. For this year's budget, they spent more than 60 hours in meetings analysing and debating what could be cut without abandoning their social, environmental and cultural goals for the city.
Councillors all want to make the city a better place. But by law, they must balance the books.
Hundreds of staff have lost their jobs. Capital investment has been deferred and operating expenditure cut. There are fewer bus services, less park maintenance, cuts across the board. Debt has risen and so have rates.
Many tough decisions have been made. Deputy mayor Bill Cashmore: "I would think that every councillor and local board member has tossed and turned over the loss of parkland to meet the needs of the emergency budget.
"There are numerous cases around the city, in my ward and yours," he told his colleagues, "where we have had to sacrifice something for the greater good. But without this budget, we would have had rates rises of 10 per cent plus."
During the process, the council wanted to maintain some equity goals. As reported last week, South Auckland has fewer playgrounds and reserves than the rest of the city, but proportionately more children. So $23m has been allocated to acquiring land for new parks and playgrounds.
The budget also includes $244m of "asset recycling". This is the council's phrase for the selling and buying of property. It does this all the time, but Covid has accelerated the process.
Using an established set of criteria, "low-value" properties throughout the city are identified and earmarked for sale, and the proceeds are usually redeployed to buy land with greater value to the city. 9R Fortyfoot Lane was one of several small reserves put into the "low-value" category.
Mayor Phil Goff said this wasn't about getting rid of parks. "I want to start by saying that parks, open spaces and community facilities are incredibly important. The 10-year budget shows it: we allocated $3.7 billion in 2018 and that rose to $4.56b in 2021."
Councillor Pippa Coom said, "This community has put in a lot of work to explain why they want to keep this green space on their street. A lot of people would want that. So I want to explain why I'm opposing the motion. We have criteria and we need to apply them consistently and equitably. If we change this it will threaten a domino effect and that will destroy the policy and the equity."
Cashmore noted that Fortyfoot Lane is just around the corner from two much larger parks - the Boulevard Park and the Esplanade park along the Tāmaki River foreshore.
Councillor and mayoral candidate Efeso Collins said his ward of Manukau is not so blessed. While Auckland overall has 30 per cent tree cover, in South Auckland it's only 8 per cent.
The council wants to rectify that, and not only for recreation. Tree cover and green spaces will be essential for regulating temperatures as the climate becomes more extreme and the lack of it in poorer parts of town is one more way they will be hardest hit by the climate crisis.
But why would the council sell any parks or reserves at all? The answer is that "recycling assets" allows funds to be made available for meeting policy goals – in this case, equity – without it being a drain on ratepayers.
Councillors Angela Dalton and Richard Hills asked Stewart if she had any ideas about how they could make up the lost revenue if they keep 9R Fortyfoot Lane? She said Auckland Transport spends too much money.
Goff noted that despite all the hours of workshops and planning, Stewart had not put up any alternative proposals.
Stewart then told her council colleagues they should vote to save Fortyfoot Lane because of climate change. That grated on most of them. Stewart has opposed nearly every climate-action measure at the council. She voted against the funding for new parks and routinely votes against council budgets as a whole.
"Councillor Stewart," said councillor Linda Cooper, "you have talked a lot about why we need parks. Why did you vote against the $23m for parks in the budget?" How come, she asked, Stewart was advocating for a park in her own ward when she had opposed the funding for parks in all the other wards?
This isn't about whether councillors should advocate for their own communities or do their best for the whole city. They have to do both and it often isn't easy.
But it is about being effective as a councillor. Sharon Stewart has been on council for all its 12 years and was on the Manukau City Council before that. Like a handful of others, she votes against almost everything.
So where will the children play in that cul de sac? The answer is obvious. Fortyfoot Lane has an enormous amount of public space currently being used for almost nothing at all. It's the street and the grassed property frontages.
If it was redesigned with a narrow entrance, the entire street could be repurposed, with a flat area for ball sports, play equipment and ample space for street parties, while retaining vehicle access and even adding some angled car parking.
All it would need is a co-ordinated plan with Auckland Transport, and a councillor with the skills to get everyone together and make it happen.
Good councillors know how to work with others to get things done. Others just watch from the sidelines and complain.
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