The Flagstaff Notes
May 18, 2018
By Rob Drent
The old Devonport Borough Council building at 3 Victoria Rd will be empty on the ground floor from the end of May – probably for the first time in its long history. It has a proud record of community use – first as a post office, then as the Devonport Borough Council chambers, then as a service centre for the North Shore City Council and home for the Devonport Community Board. In later years, the Devonport Community Coordinator and Business Improvement District manager have been based there, and the downstairs was used as a temporary library while the new library was being built. Most recently, the lower level has housed a highly successful volunteer-run visitor information centre. Now the lower floor has vacated on the instructions of Panuku, the Auckland Council property arm, which wants to extract commercial rents for the space. Or so it says. At the same time, the DevonportTakapuna Local Board is paying for a business case for the building to be retained in community use. Everyone with a close involvement with the building who the Flagstaff has spoken to, on and off the record, reckons council wants to sell it, and has done so for some time. It was transferred out of community use and into the commercial arms of
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Panuku last year. Getting commercial rents for the building – which requires substantial earthquakestrengthening, a major fit-out and the retention of the historic council chambers upstairs – is unlikely, especially given the amount of vacant commercial office space around Devonport. With an empty store front, the case for its retention becomes harder to argue, with the current downstairs occupier already signing a lease elsewhere. An empty building has a forlorn look about it: sale would be an easy next step. It’s typical of how Auckland Council seems to be operating: working to a centralised agenda, rather than what is good for a community and its businesses and, in this case, tourists who visit the city. Essentially, the volunteers are doing the promotion job the council should be doing itself. Even this was not good enough. And they have been thrown out to make way for… an empty building. I hope the Takapuna Grammar and Belmont Intermediate offer of land to facilitate a cycleway through the schools towards Takapuna Beach isn’t lost in Auckland Council red tape. Auckland Transport is investigating the creation of an eastern cycleway, which is perhaps one of the most no-brainer ideas ever put forward on the Devonport peninsula. God knows why it has taken so long to get off the ground. More than a decade ago, I was championing it in this column as a way to get students off Lake Rd and more safely to school on their bikes. In the Devonport Borough Council days, even further back, white lines were painted on the footpath for shared bike and pedestrian space. Takapuna Grammar representatives envisage the cycle lane continuing on through the schools and the Wilson Home
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and down Clifton Rd to Takapuna Beach. I’ve previously called for council to take the next step and put a pedestrian/cycle boardwalk along the front of Takapuna Beach to the playground, which would create a much safer cycle route between Devonport and Takapuna – and a great ride for tourists as well. But I wonder if the council has the balls for that. Another incident involving an out-ofcontrol unleashed dog is worrying. The first we covered this year was a dog attack at the Devonport Dog Parade. Then, earlier this month, a resident suffered a badly broken shoulder after a dog attacked her pet on Mt Victoria. There seems to be an overconfidence among Devonport dog owners over their ability to control dogs off the lead. From my observations around town, only a very small proportion of local canines return instantly when called.