1. New Re-Use (aka Flea) Market in the City Centre Info. Come and hear from market organiser Suzanne Kendrick/Waitematā Waste Away, about exciting new plans for this monthly market.
2. A4E - Access for Everyone - it is a critical part of the city centre masterplan, but what does it really mean in and for the city centre, and for residents in particular? The transformative power of traffic circulation plans will be revealed! MRCagney designed this bold strategy with Auckland Council. MRC's Kent Lundberg will explain.
And Bring your own city centre kōrero for discussion afterwards.
Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou!
Thank you to all for your exceptional community mahi.
Last month the local board awards committee deliberated, and awarded the biennial Good Citizen Awards to the good and deserving in our rohe.
Lots of amazing and thoughtful mahi being done out there - congratulations to all recipients in any one of the Individual, Community, and Children/young people categories.
1. CCRG presented to the board on our proposals to empower CCRG - A Residents' Voice, into the future to meet the needs of the City Centre Action Plan, and all its residential goodies within. Well received, with plenty of keen questioning!
2. Representation review and local board reorganisation &
Proposals for More Empowered Local Boards
Good thinking & reasoning (+ unanimous decision) from the Board on the various options for possibly reorganising Local Governance structures.
Pretty similar to CCRG feedback.
If we want better and more diverse representation and engagement across our LB area, with the diversity of population and communities that we have, then we actually need more capacity and funding.
Relevant Carried Motions 1 & 2 from 19 March mtg minutes
4. For all Agendas, attachments, meeting minutes and attachments, see HERE.
5.The next public board meeting is Tuesday 16 April, at the impressive Town Hall Council Chamber, under some watchful eyes. CCRG have asked to present on our work with Communities Against Alcohol Harm, via the Liquor Licensing processes, in addressing some of the alcohol harm experienced here.
Lots of progress and projects completed in the city centre.
It's easy to forget the significant progress made.
Read the latest council update: 'City centre transformation gathers pace, with 15 projects delivered in past 5 years', with tens of $millions contributed from the City Centre Targeted rate in there as well.
Yes, this has failed again, and will remain upright 'until further notice', as its resource consent requires.
Maybe in the interim we could have a 24/7 on-demand all modes accessible waka shuttle across the gap?
In 2019 there was an attempt to replace (Check out the various designs), this 'temporary' structure.
The current plan has replacement out somewhere past 2026, but clearly a solution will need to be urgently found.
There are a lot residents, other people and businesses depending on this bridge route, and it forms a critical part of the waterfront that we have spent a lot of money on developing and improving.
Change the Street.
Change the World.
📸 CCRG
An inspirational talk from New York's influential, celebrated, and successful Janette Sadik-Khan, in front of 600 people.
'JSK' is a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (2007–2013), and is one of the world's foremost authorities on transportation and urban transformation.
Much of what was talked about is exactly the sort of progress and city-uplift-for-people, that CCRG and others have been advocating for. It is embodied by our City Centre Masterplan. A plan still in the making, but just as relevant, and visionary, and practicable, as it was at its creation in 2012.
In fact it is even more critical to implement it, from our 2024 environmental and climate change reality.
A flea market for 2nd hand, handmade & upcycled items.
Our new Auckland City Centre ReUse market is a way to sell stuff you no longer need- make a few $$ and also move your stuff on to someone else who has a use for it.
ReUse is higher up the waste hierarchy, so that ticks lots of boxes.
2nd Sunday of every month
Sunday 14 April 9-12
All undercover on the ground floor of Vic St Carpark - now that's a good use.
A 2022 report commissioned by Eke Panuku, estimated and compared a standard suburban house's annual carbon emissions with housing being developed by Eke Panuku .
However the addition of city centre apartment living would have been a useful baseline as well - one of the levers to encourage people to live here.
We suspect that the yearly carbon household emissions might well meet the stated targets - but we don't know what city centre apartment estimates are from this report.
Now that Eke Panuku are the City Centre lead agency, CCRG have requested an update on this report that includes city centre/apartment living.
For a few years now, CCRG have been pondering a new way forward, future proofed for change and growth.
How do we ensure we have have a consistent, reliable, diverse and representative voice for residents as the residential population grows.
Especially now that we have the newly minted City Centre Action Plan that has such a strong (and welcome) focus on residents (thanks in part to CCRG's consistent and ongoing advocacy at levels that matter, and via our two seats on the City Centre Advisory Panel).
When we were set up as an IncSoc in 2004, our current MO made sense. The efforts by a group of volunteers sufficed.
Our current agreed way forward that we are presenting, is to 'professionalise' the group, perhaps a bit like the BiD model that people will be more familiar with. A board or council of city centre residents?(each representing a neighbourhood to get that hyper-local kōrero to the table, distinctly representing that neighbourhood), supported by a small number of paid staff to do all the day to day continuity mahi - resident events & feedback, social media, Media, e-news, membership, stakeholder, elected member and Council family meetings, submissions and so on across the probably 50+ city centre areas we currently work across.
The new resident-focussed ambitions of the Action Plan are a perfect opportunity to make this change, so CCRG can better help achieve the Action Plan's residential outcomes.
And CCRG can really can progress all our ambitions to make the city centre a better place for residents, and continue endlessly advocating for residents here to be centred in all plans and discussions affecting us, at all times.
A new model to progress a city centre that supports and centres residents?
‘Greener, safer, calmer’: The plan to discourage drivers from central Sydney
Such an interesting article, with strong relevance to our city centre as we move towards implementing the agreed Access for Everyone element (2020) of the city centre masterplan.
A4E is basically a circulation plan from which we can design kerb side uses (loading & servicing, parklets, tress and rain gardens, wider footpaths and more) to support the other juicy bits of the masterplan.
We of course already have 30kph, which means we can re-design our streets for those safer and much more pleasant speeds. We have Auckland Transport's excellent Roads & Streets Framework created to do exactly this.
Some statements also applicable here:
“Having spent billions on a massive motorway network to bypass the city, now is the time to start removing cars from city streets ... and reprioritising space for people to walk,”
“When more people walk, ride or catch public transport instead of driving, valuable road space is freed up for those who need to drive, like tradespeople, delivery drivers and emergency service vehicles,” the strategy says.
“Walkable cities attract businesses, workers and visitors, driving economic growth,” (They will also help attract the 100k residents we aspire to have - ed).
Greener, safer, clamer - who wouldn't want that.
'Public Space is the house of Everyone'
Superblocks for the Supercity?
How to turn urban neighbourhoods into vibrant city villages
A recent Auckland Conversations talk by Barcelona's Salvador Rueda, was delivered in such a personable, relatable and human way.
One of the many quotes from recent visitor, speaker, and Barcelona's 'Superblock' proposer. (Urban planner, ecologist, and psychologist):
70% more public space for other uses in Barcelona created by reducing traffic by 15%.
The model is very flexible, and everyone can arrive at their needed destinations, by car, foot and other modes. It is a human approach, focussed on the vulnerable - disabled, children, elderly.
It is basically a circulation plan, very similar to what is being proposed by our agreed Access for Everyone strategy within the city centre masterplan.
Perhaps the most important is 'Pedestrians to Citizens'.
'In a public space where we have enough people and activities it becomes very vital and habitable. A citizen can develop, children can play in the streets again, art and culture can flourish, debates are possible.
All is possible, citizens' rights explode.
Please take the car out of the brain for 5 minutes - you are a different human being'
Our City Library always has the best displays and interpretive exhibitions.
Were you embracing the zeitgeist?
Of course, living in the city centre in that period was heavily restricted via planning rules, no dirty, 'crowded' city centre apartment living allowed! - out you go, further and further out, to enjoy the freedoms of the quarter-acre-pavlova-paradise.
Libraries are Amazing
And none more so than our city centre library with its books and resources, and its full programme of community-supporting mahi. The city centre community has very diverse needs given that we have something like 180 different ethnic groups living here with many first time inhabitants.
They offer many programs and services to help new migrants navigate an unfamiliar daily life.
The Citizens Advice Bureau offers free legal advice and have a Justice of the Peace on-site Mon12-2 and 10-12 on Saturday. Support our CAB!
2 x weekly English Conversation Group, Mon 2-4pm and Thurs 4-6pm.
In partnership with English Language Partners and Literacy Aotearoa, various English classes are available.
Expanding Auckland’s zero-emission transport fleet, the first CRRC Double Deck Electric Bus has been unveiled. The mayor is certainly in the driver's seat of this one. Take a trip out to Point Chevalier beach on the 18 and you might get a ride on it.
Source and more Vids NZ Transit Buzz
Draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) 2024
The WMMP sets our direction and work needed to manage and reduce waste.
Here is a summaryof proposals.
The previous plan tended to overlook apartment dwellers in the city centre, which is both a shame, and inequitable.
This new draft plan also needs some more effort directed at apartment dwellers (and not just in the city centre).
Dense urban residential living, especially in apartments provides the best opportunities for low-carbon lifestyles with lots of opportunities for waste minimisation, recycling and upcycling.
In a way we are a captive audience.
But we need more support for that, to make it easier and effective for apartment dwellers to participate.
A 21 March section of the NZ Herald was all about Project Auckland, with plenty of City Centre focus.
CCRG's contribution, 'A safe place for future generations' discussed the less-than-optimal enforcement of the 2013 Safety Bylaw, and our investment of $250 million of targeted rate in the city centre over the last 10 years (with another $270 million in the next 10 years), and the value of that in terms of safety outcomes.
'It is essential that everyone who lives, works or visits our city centre feels safe'
There is plenty of Safety work going on, (Police are successfully targeting and arresting repeat offenders) and CCRG continue to work with others here, especially Heart of the City, in liaising with Council and social service providers to strengthen compliance with the public safety and nuisance bylaw and ensure timely social support for people who need help.
Look out for the HotC Safety Team, visible in their green and black uniforms and the Maori Wardens continue their mahi. Community Patrols NZ is well and truly back in the city centre with further expansion plans underway. (Join other city centre residents and become a Patroller here as a visible safety presence, and as eyes and ears for the police).
And we all continue to lobby for more police on our streets and a downtown station.
Community Patrols Safety Hub 52 High Street, joins the safety hub on Queens Wharf (see pic below).
Want to join the central patrolling team?
It's always good to have really local eyes and ears on the street -JOIN HERE
City centre CPNZ patrols operate out of the Queens Wharf Village Hub. Generally open Fri, Sat and Sun - say 👋
CCRG Feedback
Feedback on the Auckland Long-term Plan 2024-2034 (aka 10-year Budget) closed 28 March.
This plan is due to take effect in June 2024.
It sets out what we plan to achieve in Auckland over the next 10 years and how we will fund it.
Like many individuals and groups, CCRG had something to say.
CCRG completed the two online sections:
1.An introduction to the long-term plan and most of the questions
2. Priorities for the Waitematā local board
followed by
3. an uploaded document of CCRG's other feedback.
How about having a bee hive on the top of your apartment builidng or office block?
Are you keen to support the urban bee population?
Expert Beekeeper - Queen Bee - Jessie Baker from Bees Up Top is going to teach you how to make this a reality.
This Short St/Anzac Ave intersection work has been bubbling away for a while - good to see it taking shape. There are 1000's of residents walking & crossing here.
CCRG support efforts to see one more 'difficult' intersection made safer.
We need to create a lot more permeability. Here's a clever way. We could easily retrofit these spaces for more vegetation and better stormwater management. (A small 15% reduction in on street parking in the city centre would provide over 2 km of public space for gardens and trees).
Tai Chi (see below for next round of city centre classes) - where an opponent's energies are redirected and not resisted.
Stop fighting the water.
We have to adapt.
Speaking of Tai Chi - Next city centre classes start soon - Register
Thanks to Auckland Arts Festival Te Ahurei o Tāmaki for another stunning range of events, many free to enjoy.
More events & arts support is required. 📸 bernoir
