Friends of Fowlds's Park dealings with City Vision

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Helen Coyte, Chair of Friends of Fowld's Park writes of her experience dealing with the City Vision Controlled Albert Eden Local Board. Of note also, she has tried twice to put her letter on the Mt Albert Community FB Page and twice they have taken it down. Is that democratic? These issues should be debated!

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Apologies, this is a long post. Please take the time to read to the end.

There’s been a lot of talk on local Facebook pages about issues that affect how people vote in the upcoming local body elections. As such, I thought I’d take some time to outline my (and Friends of Fowlds Park) experience in dealing with council and the Albert Eden local board. I am not telling you who to vote for, but asking that you look very carefully at the candidates, what they stand for and how they operate.

Friends of Fowlds Park was formed around 6 years ago when the Local Board made a decision to “upgrade” the park by way of a crumb rubber artificial turf and a 3.5m high concrete retaining wall running the length of the 2 fields below. Their reasoning behind this upgrade was the extreme shortage of sports fields in the Albert Eden board area.

A small group of local residents decided it was worth fighting to retain the character and amenity value of Fowlds Park. We were opposed on all sides - the sports clubs believed they needed this upgrade, neighbours were divided (many believed we needed it too and others didn’t want to rock the boat, most were apathetic). So we went into battle as underdogs.

Here is a list of facts about the sports field capacity data that the local board are basing all the decisions to chop up local parks and fill them with sports fields: The statistics take into account only the sports fields in the Albert Eden Area and not those just over the borders in Whau, Puketapapa and Waitemata. The data is based on people only travelling short distances (15-20 minutes) to their sports. People know to choose clubs where they don’t get stuck in traffic getting to and from. It also does not consider the fact that many people have historic and familial connections to sports clubs and will continue to travel to them despite not living in the area. The consultancy company employed by Auckland council to gain this information (which was for Auckland wide) made the assumption that ALL teams require a full field for training. This would be lovely in a perfect world, but is not a necessity and not something that the sports clubs expect or need. They often have several teams training on one field at once. If all of the existing sports fields in Albert Eden were upgraded with hybrid turf (as in Fowlds and Gribblehirst Parks) there would be no shortfall.

The City Vision members of our local board have consistently based their arguments on the shortage of sports fields in the area and will not acknowledge that there are flaws in the data that cause it to be skewed.

So, based on these flaws and the fact that Fowlds Park has historic and amenity value that were worth protecting, we put forward our case. We made submissions against the proposal, took part in the consultation process and took our case to the local board and our local councillors as well as our then MP, David Shearer. Still, the decision was made to install crumbed rubber and a bloody great wall!

We went to the resource consent hearing. At the end of the 3 day resource consent hearing the planning department of council and the council’s own landscape architect agreed that the plan was ill-thought out and had adverse effects on the amenity value of the park and changed their recommendation to not approve consent. Despite this, the independent commissioners still approved the consent.

We then appealed the decision to the Environment court. After 2 days of mediation, we went away prepared to go to court. While we were waiting to hear about our day in court, the council withdrew their resource consent and, long story short, went back to the local board with a plan to upgrade the fields with hybrid turf - something FOFP had been advocating all along. The other thing that happened at this stage was that Mt Albert Rugby League (MARL) finally realised they were being sold a lemon and joined forces with FOFP. This was a turning point as we finally had the backing of one of the major stakeholders in the park and of our current MP Jacinda Ardern. So, the result was a good one for all - there are fantastic new lights, a new hybrid turf field and 2 more being upgraded. Most residents and MARL now realise that this was a much better outcome and the original plan would have been disastrous.

However, in all of this process, the City Vision members of our local board have continuously lied and twisted the facts to promote their agenda. And when it didn’t go their way and they finally conceded that hybrid turf was a better plan, they turned it around to say that it was their preference all along and they were never happy with the idea of artificial crumbed rubber. Other members of the local board have since acknowledged that the original plan was a bad one, but the Chair, in particular, has refused to admit that they got it wrong. Their arrogance and egos have been nothing short of astounding.

Throughout this whole process, I have sat in on many local board meetings and have been shocked at how some people (certain stakeholders in the park) have been given so much airtime despite their refusal to engage with other stakeholders and spreading lies and misinformation while others including members of the board have been shut down by the Chair because he didn’t like the way the discussion was going. He has shown no willingness to listen and hear other's points of view and continues to dispute facts. I’ve had the Chair not able to look me in the eye when we had dealings with each other on other community initiatives. This is the sort of petty behaviour we have had to deal with from those who are elected to represent us.

My wish for local politics is that all positions were filled with independent representatives, but I realise that is idealistic. However, it is clear that the minority on the board does not stand a chance while City Vision holds the majority. None seem capable of independent, critical thinking and continue to follow the pack. I’d also like to see the consultation process changed to be more of a chance for stakeholders to suggest ideas rather than being offered plans and told to pick one. If consultation had been carried out properly and competently in the first instance, this whole process should have taken a year and not 6.

Whatever your thoughts are on issues such as the Mt Albert upgrade and Chamberlain Park, City Vision have to be held accountable and have their majority removed so that at least we can have some serious debate and a chance for some more objective decision making.

Thanks for reading this all the way through and giving it some consideration. I’m happy for it to be shared, but please bear in mind that this is just an account of my experience.

Helen Coyte Chair of Friends of Fowlds Park Inc.

Check out the candidate list and how they will vote about Chamberlain Park

http://www.savecpark.org/candidate-lists