PONSONBY PARK

PONSONBY PARK+ JUNE UPDATE

The good news just keeps coming!

The Community-Led Design (CLD) group is delighted that Marina Van den Berg has been appointed as the council project manager for the development of Ponsonby Park+, the new civic space at 254 Ponsonby Road. This is great news! By the time of publication, the CLD group will have met with Marina to continue our community engagement role.

The next tranche of work is to meet the start work deadline of 1 July 2023 for Stage One of the development. This will include:

1. Developed Design Currently, we have the multi-award-winning Park+ concept design* by LandLAB. This concept design will be developed to be consent ready. Council has already completed the site survey so design development work is ready to start now.

2. Resource Consent Once the design development work is completed, an application for resource consent can be lodged with council. Happily, this consenting can be prioritised.

3. Detailed Design Detailed design and technical drawings are then developed including the EDA - ‘Engineering Planning Approval’ work.

4. Building Consent An application for building consent is lodged with council.

5. Tenders Tender drawings are issued and the contract is awarded.

6. Community consultation Any additional consultation needed will happen during the course of this work stream.

7. Start work on site 1 July 2023. The Community-Led Design group is a valuable asset to, and an integral part of the process of developing Ponsonby Park+. Indeed, it was the CLD group that resolved the impasse that enabled the project to progress to the delivery stage that is now underway. We will continue to be your voice in the delivery by maintaining our community awareness work.

“In a world with increasingly complex problems, collaboration is essential. PARK+ is LandLAB’s winning entry into the Ponsonby Park design competition held in late 2017. This project pilots a new model for community-led engagement, a design-led process and, interdisciplinary collaboration beyond a 'business as usual' consultation process”. **LandLAB

Our volunteer CLD group has always been motivated by the belief that Ponsonby Park will be a wonderful community amenity, meeting existing needs, as well as being an exemplar of community engagement, design excellence and, delivery.

Bring it on! (JENNIFER WARD)  PN

An opportunity for the existing building at 254 Ponsonby Road, is for the Toy Library to relocate into part of it. We understand this option is being explored by the Waitematā Local Board and the CLD group is in full support of this proposal.

*Awards: NZILA Award of Excellence in Unbuilt Visionary (2019), World Architecture News (WAN) Future Projects: Civic Award Winner (2018), World Architecture Festival (WAF) Civic Future Project Award Finalist (2018)

**landlab.co.nz/ponsonby-park

For further information please see our www.254ponsonbyrd.org.nz Or our Facebook page: Ponsonby Park.

LOCAL ARTIST & FOREST PROTECTOR, ANNETTE ISBEY DIES

Talented local artist Annette Isbey was considered to be a ‘cultural icon’. Sadly, she passed away on 16 May.

I met Annette in 2015 after incessant phone calls asking for help. She was deeply distressed by the actions of those wanting to destroy her much loved Western Springs Forest. She owned two mill cottages and an art studio adjoining the walking track entry on West View Road and she spent hours weeding and planting many natives to add to the existing ngahere.

Annette had contacted Waitematā Local Board a number of times about the poor condition of the Western Springs walking track and offroad bikes damaging the native forest.

Western Springs Forest was saved from destruction as a result of her meeting in 2015 with David Stejskal (Auckland Council arborist), Rob Thomas (WLB) and local artist from Edge City, cafe owner Lisa Prager, and Gael Baldock.

I carried on the fight for Annette when she was on longer able to do so. Dementia meant Annette was spared witnessing the ecological disaster that included the unnecessary destruction of her mature trees, along with 15,000 natives last year. She would have been horrified. Nor did she see the upgraded walking track, six years after she had asked for it to be made safe. She would have enjoyed the picturesque view of the lake it exposed, but not at the cost of this once ‘Significant Ecological Area’.

During Covid lockdown restrictions, ‘consultation’ was held for a $83,000 ‘loop track’, at the point where the cleared area adjoins the current walking track. Whilst the majority of feedback supported it, without a public meeting to properly explain the primary intention to create a native forest. Nature is best left alone!

The Waitematā Local Board voted for a ‘loop track’ now costing $121,000. Is this going to be another budget blow out like the $2 million destruction? The track will include a turning platform for wheelchairs yet the slope of the hillside is too steep for wheelchair accessibility and access from West View Road includes three sets of stairs!

I suggested taking the track to the magnificent view of the lake to a seating area, a fifth of the length and therefore one fifth the cost. That money would be better spent on trees for a future canopy by planting with the existing native forest, as per the plan before one third of the forest was annihilated, once the track is ‘disestablished’ as per the Resource Consent -

“The access track, culverts and landing/chipping areas shall be disestablished and returned to the same general topographical formation that existed prior to the works being undertaken.”

I tried reasoning with both Auckland Council and Waitematā Local Board to make these works safe, but to no avail. The overland watercourses are blocked by the platform shelf formed by the working track.

There is a dangerous jerry-rigged retaining ‘wall’ that has been formed by a felled log propped between two stumps to hold up chipped logs several meters deep that is starting to wash down the hillside. There’s evidence that glyphosate is being used, instead of pulling weeds.

I have been left with no choice than to take this Health and Safety issue to the Environment Court for an order to complete the Resource Consent. The point of this development was to create an urban native forest.

My thoughts are with Annette's family at this sad time. (GAEL BALDOCK)  PN