The Provision of Parks

Should councils provide parks?

Surely.

It is well established that resourcing parks is core council business. We need green space. Where else do we exercise, picnic, walk through, hold events, and take our children to play? Maintaining parks is one of the largest budget lines of council.

And yet, look at history . . . the funding of park maintenance is one thing, the acquisition of them another.

While councils can and do sometimes acquire land for parks, most seem to have been gifted, were formed during subdivisions, or were reserved as parks as they were not suitable for much else.

The Domain was included in land gifted by Ngati Whatua. The rest was subdivided into urban and rural parcels. That was it for parks for a few decades.

Western Park is one of the earliest parks and land wasn’t acquired, it was rezoned on what was a rubbish dump with an overland flowpath across it. Hamilton Gardens, same story. Cox’s Bay, Victoria Park and many others are closed landfills.

Grey Lynn was used for livestock, and the gullies as casual dumping grounds, until Crummers Farm was subdivided. The original plan had tiny sections and no park and there was public outcry. The prospectors set aside the floodplain for recreational space, and the Richmond Rovers moved in.

At the turn of the century, when philanthropy was fashionable, John Logan Campbell gifted the land to form Cornwall Park and John Myers gifted his eponymous park for the families of Auckland. This did mean that many working class families living in the area were displaced, but the removal of the ‘slums’ were perceived by some as a feature, not a problem.

Many parks and reserves are on sites unsuitable for development whether they be too steep or too wet – or both. Bayfield Park (and Western Park) is steep with an overland flowpath. Western Springs is marshland. These, Grey Lynn and many other parks play a dual role, to make space for water and as recreational space.

In the nineties (good old neoliberalism), some pocket parks were sold for development. Many of the homes built on them have been repeatedly flooded, and were bought back by council after the 2023 Anniversary floods at huge cost. Many are likely to stay reserves to allow space for water as they did in the past. Others might be sold to neighbours so as to expand their gardens. That’s fine.

There are arguments within council around setting the budget for the acquisition of parks. I would make the point that it will always be much cheaper to reserve land before subdivision than acquire it back later, and that it is considerably more impactful to demand that each site has landscaping and some deep soil for trees than try against the odds to establish sufficient tree biodiversity on the footpath.

Recently, the Waitemata Local Board opened Te Rimutahi a new civic space and park in Ponsonby. The original funding for the site came from the community board twenty years ago. This was no small thing, and meant the deferring of many other projects. The cost of developing the land however came from private philanthropy, not council (who tried to pull the pin on the project post Covid, when budgets were stretched).

Te Ara Tukutuku on Wynyard Point is being developed and is widely supported, but it will be costly, delivered in stages, and take decades to complete. The Platt Arboretum, gifted this year to the people of Auckland, is likely to be open to the public far sooner.

There is an argument that greenspace should be provided by the public purse and that there is no need to ensure sufficient greenspace in private development, and, in fact that do so is morally wrong as it might reduce capacity. I think that is shortsighted.

Park space is highly contested for sport and leisure, and the streets for movement, utilities, and infrastructure and we need more but there is simply not enough public resource to acquire or support the amount of greenspace that we need in rainy subtropical fertile Auckland to make space for water, trees, biodiversity and recreation.

We know that people will need greenspace and it needs to be designed in to developments, small and large. In the city this might mean using courtyards, walls, balconies and roofs but in suburbs it might mean some frontyard and backyard space. We also know that at a micro level there are areas of the city, and on sites that should not be built on because it puts the residents and their property at risk. Can this be our guide?

Greenspace within develpments matter in connecting up animal habitat and ensuring everyone has some physical or visual access to nature. These do not have to be large but they need to be connected and they need to be there. Go up, don’t sprawl, leave space for nature and avoid the boggy bits should apply on an individual site basis, as much as a city one.