The Mount Eden Village People

Our submission for the Local Board Plan

August 2nd, 2011

We support our local board draft plan and would like to submit the following:

Protecting our heritage:
In addition to protecting heritage buildings we would like to see the protection of heritage centres and not just the protection of individual buildings.

Improving transport in our area:

Slow down traffic to improve road safety.
Encourage the use of public transport.
Provide more cycle lanes.

Managing our economic growth and development:
We support the creation of new local  jobs that are needed to grow our vision of a sustainable community. For example, we would like to see a professional local ranger  who has the skills and authority to work with volunteers on environmental and conservation projects for Maungawhau.  Our area needs to have someone who has the knowledge to coordinate volunteers to plant on the mountain and assist in communication between council officers and community groups in order to get community based initiatives operational.

There are also many opportunities  in our local area including meeting  the demand for volunteer tourism. Visitors to Auckland often want to make contact with local people and contribute to a conservation project.  By staying for a few extra days in Auckland volunteer tourists spend more but also could also contribute to a planting / weeding /community garden  programme.  A volunteer tourism co-ordinator working in conjunction with local rangers could help develop this aspect of Auckland’s tourism economy.

We also see the need for a local person to co-ordinate a waste minimisation project.  This person could also be responsible for the ensuring the cleaning of storm water drains and streets in our village centre.

Improving our recreation and our community facilities:
Open spaces:
We strongly support the vision of creating more open spaces for our community. We would like to see fruit trees and local food production as part of existing and new open spaces. We believe that this will help to attract more people to use parks and help families with their food bills.

We would like to see Maungawhau as a safe place for people to use and enjoy. We would like to see the removal of the buses that are too big for the mountain road and which cause danger for pedestrians.

Look after our assets and support a strong no more pollution policy:
1. Smoke free:
Regional parks have now become smoke free and we would like to see the same rules applied to around our parks, playgrounds as well as on the volcanoes in our community.
2. Litter free Mt Eden:
Support and promote an anti litter campaign initiated by Auckland council to prevent littering. Litter offenders can now be reported and fined via a 0800 INTHEBIN report line. We would like our local board to support and promote this litter report line.
3. Storm water drains:
Work on a solution that stops litter being carried out to sea. Litter preventing via promotion of the 0800 INTHEBIN report line, litter catchment area at the stormwater outlets at the beaches, in non flooding areas the curb should not be open for large litter items to go down the drain.
4. Libraries:
We support our 3 existing libraries. We would like to see a local library in Mt Eden village or at least a place in Mt Eden Village where books can be dropped off and picked up.
5. Community centres:
We strongly support our existing centres and hope that community groups will be supported to create more community events held at community centres. We would like to see the funding of adult education classes.
6. Roads:
Employ local staff to keep our roads and beaches clean and do not rely on volunteers. Bins around beaches need to be cleared more regularly in good weather.

Building a stronger sustainable community, preparing our community for the challenges due to climate change issues to the end of cheap oil, building community awareness:

1.    Support local programmes that are designed to minimise waste and educate.
2.    Support a local recycling centre where the public can drop off and obtain products that can be reused by others (http://www.trashpalace.co.nz)
3.    Support local recycling initiatives that make recycling easier
4.    Support worm farming and compost bins for local shops,  households and schools.
5.    Support bringing bees into the city.
6.    Support the planting of community fruit trees on berms in parks and reserves.
7.    Support community garden and food production in our city ward.
8.    Support grassroots community programmes and organizations.
9.    Support recycling and initiatives to have hazardous waste collection more available and part of the weekly collection, or drop off bins available 24 hours for each suburb.
10.    Any initiatives that encourage the public and businesses to reduce the creation and use of packaging.
11.    Support programs that promote the reduction of CO2 emissions.
12.    Support New Zealand made and fair trade.

General feedback for the submission forms, brochures and the submission process:
We would like to see all board documents and brochures printed on recycled paper or on paper with recycled with paper content supplied by a sustainably managed forest. We suggest that brochures do not need to be matt laminated – this will save money and make brochure recycling easier.

In the future we would like to be able to submit online without having to print and post a document. This will save money, paper and printing costs and is better for our environment.

Tags: Community, Community Garden, Fruit trees, Mount Eden, Submission
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