‘Super City’ land grab a distraction

4 September 2009

The Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill, as reported back to Parliament today, will see Auckland’s land area significantly reduced with radical changes to northern and southern boundaries.

“We are profoundly disappointed with today’s announcement,” says the Chairman of the ARC, Mike Lee. “The Government has let Auckland down and has also let itself down.”

The decision to arbitrarily carve out large swathes of Auckland’s land area, (approximately a quarter of Greater Auckland), will impact on the future Auckland Council’s ability to deliver integrated management and coherent planned development.” says Mr Lee.

“We in the ARC had hoped for a governance structure, more streamlined, more efficient and much more capable of enabling Auckland to fulfil its enormous potential - making Auckland great.

“The decisions made by Government on Auckland’s northern and southern boundaries effectively remove the ‘super’ from the hoped for “Super City”.  Given the enormous amount of time and money that has gone into the process so far, the outcome in practical terms is bizarre.  I am dismayed that common sense has not prevailed.”

“We fail to understand why the Government is looking to fix something that is not broken – especially when there are so many parts of Auckland’s governance structure that need attention during what will be a particularly demanding transition,” says Mr Lee.

“This is doubly disappointing because not only will the significant reduction to the size of Greater Auckland mean a diminished city/region, it will also be an ongoing controversial distraction to the transition process.

“This land grab has every appearance of backroom deals and the same old ‘politics as usual’ approach. Auckland deserves better than this. This is not the Auckland “Super City” vision many of us have hoped and worked for,” says Mr Lee.

Ends

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