Chaffer’s Park Campaign—Letters

Letter to the Mayor - 21/10/97

TO: Mayor Mark Blumsky

DATE: October 21, 1997

ORGANISATION: Wellington City Council

FAX NUMBER: 801-3033

Dear Mayor Blumsky,

At last night's public presentation of the waterfront designs, you stated, 'There will be plenty of opportunity for the public to have input on the designs.'

This statement seems at odds with the decision made by the council on October I that there should be no further public consultation on waterfront development, and with the subsequent decision to allow limited input only through groups represented on the Community Consultative Committee.

With 1500 members, Chaffers Park - Make It Happen! represents a larger body of public opinion than does almost any group on the CCC.

Our membership covers a spectrum of Wellingtonians - everyone from senior citizens to teenage skateboarders, from inner city apartment dwellers to residents of Tawa, from rich to poor. It represents a tremendous resource of knowledge, experience and creative energy on Chaffers in particular and the waterfront in general.

As I'm sure you will agree, we have played a major role, and continue to play a major role, in supplying information to the public, and stimulating active debate about the issues and options for waterfront development.

CCC members are to be given information packs on the designs, and funding to mail these packs out to members of the organisations they represent for comment.

We would like to formally request that, as a sign of your bona fides and a recognition of the need for the Chaffers options to be thoroughly canvassed before decisions are made, this arrangement be extended to include Chaffers Park - Make It Happen! and any other group with a direct and active interest in the waterfront designs.

I look forward to an early response.

Warm regards,

Mary Varnham

Letter to the Editor

The Evening Post

November 19, 1997

SIR,

Gee it's rough out here defending the public interest. First the mayor tells us to 'shut up' - in the middle of a public consultation process in which we are an official participant.

Then the chairperson of the Community Consultative Committee claims we are prepared to sacrifice all other public space on the waterfront to get Chaffers Park.

Where did she get this queer idea? I have consistently said just the opposite - that the whole waterfront must be kept in public ownership and developed as public space. It is a taonga which we should protect and preserve for future generations.

At present the council's plan is to alienate up to 40 percent as commercial building sites. We are told this is necessary in order to pay for the public space. I am reminded of the American sergeant in Vietnam who famously said that his men had had to destroy a village in order to save it.

I am reassured that the mayor, at least, has broken out of this privatisation mindset and is now looking at other ways of funding waterfront development.

Yours,

MARY VARNHAM

CHAFFERS PARK - MAKE IT HAPPEN!

For more information contact MARY VARNHAM, PHONE 385-8083 or e-mail us at chaffers@freemail.co.nz

Letter to the Mayor - 12/12/97

TO: Mayor Mark Blumsky

DATE: December 12, 1997

ORGANISATION: Wellington City Council

FAX NUMBER: 801-3033

Wellington City Council

PO Box 2199

Wellington

Dear Mayor Blumsky,

I am sorry you did not visit our booth at the Thorndon Fair on Sunday. If you had, I very much doubt you would have continued in your belief, expressed on the Mike Yardley Show this week, that the CCC's recommendations accurately reflect the wishes of the people of Wellington for their waterfront.

Of the hundreds who came and looked at the plans, only three supported buildings on Chaffers. One of these was happy with Option 3. I enclose 80 personal letters of protest written to you on the spot.

Most people were incredulous that the council would consider allowing a wall of five to seven storey buildings to be built on a public park - blocking off both park and harbour from the city and, in effect, creating an elite housing development.

A number also commented that Te Papa is the most expensive building ever constructed in New Zealand, the showplace of the nation's treasures, and deserves a beautiful park setting commensurate with its status. To treat its surroundings as just another building site for private real estate was condemned as shortsighted, and reflecting poorly on the Wellington City Council.

Many people also said the council did not have a mandate to alienate for private use waterfront land given to the people of Wellington.

This reaction was not unexpected. Public opinion surveys have shown that over three-quarters of Wellingtonians support a 100% park on Chaffers, and over 90 percent oppose privatisation of waterfront land.

These views are very well expressed in the Appendix to our report to the CCC, which contain hundreds of comments we received in response to our questionnaire. They comprise a very moving testimony to the great love Wellingtonians have for their city, harbour and waterfront, and their fervent belief that it should remain as public open space for future generations to enjoy.

Chaffers Park - Make It Happen! will continue to oppose residential and commercial development on Chaffers. We consider the CCC consultation process to have been seriously flawed and the results therefore invalid. The chair, Dianne Buchan, herself noted in a letter to the City Council's chief executive that the consultation would not sufficiently rigorous, and therefore would not be accepted by the public. This view has been endorsed by the Wellington Civic Trust. And so it has proved to be.

We are commissioning an independent assessment of the CCC's consultation process. In the meantime, we note three areas which call the results into question. These are examined in more detail in the accompanying submission.

1] It was prejudicial to Option One to link the 100% park with demolition of the Herd Street Post Office.

It is clearly possible to have a full park at Chaffers and retain the Herd Street Post Office on site. Yet respondents were not given the opportunity to vote for this.

When people were given the opportunity - as in our questionnaire and in Waterfront Watch's - the result was overwhelming support for Option One. It is significant that in the Waterfront Watch survey, there was a 22% increase in the number of people preferring the 100% park if it did not involve demolition of the Herd Street Post Office.

The removal - or, failing that, the demolition - of the Herd Street Post Office, as recommended by the CCC, is most definitely not supported by the majority of Wellingtonians. The most popular option is retention on site.

Our survey also asked about preferred uses for the building. Most respondents wanted it used as a public facility, with the next preference being commercial lease.

2] The Design Team's three-dimensional drawings were not provided to people answering the questionnaire.

These drawings (attached to our submission) provide the only indication available of the overall physical impact of the buildings proposed in Options 2, 3 and 4. Wherever they have been shown they have had a marked effect on people's feelings about the respective options.

The drawings that were provided were widely criticised as vague, confusing and hard to understand - certainly not a defensible basis for informed decisionmaking.

3] A highly misleading front page article appeared in the Evening Post during the week the questionnaire was being completed under the headline 'Massive debt for Chaffers forecast'.

The article (attached to our submission) erroneously implied that development of a 100% park on the Chaffers site would cost ratepayers up to $100 million and create huge debt for Lambton Harbour Management - a claim that undoubtedly deterred many people from voting for Option One.

If figures were to be used to help the public clarify their position on waterfront development, a full independent financial analysis should have been released. Lambton Harbour Management's random use of figures, including existing debt unrelated to future waterfront development, can only be seen as an attempt to frighten the public into voting for commercial development rather than public amenity on the waterfront.

There is only one way to accurately and unassailably test public preferences for the Chaffers site, and for other controversial plans such as the siting of Shed 31 on Frank Kitts Park and the virtual foreclosing of the possibility of large events space on the waterfront. That, as Dianne Buchan told the Council, is through a professional public opinion survey.

We would go further. We believe that the future use of the waterfront is the most serious issue faced by any Wellington city council in the last 50 years. Decisions made now will radically and irreversibly affect the quality of life for future generations of Wellingtonians.

Before the council proceeds with these plans, which include the transfer into private use of the city's most valuable public land, it must seek a mandate through a public referendum. Any less would be a grievous abuse of democracy.

We urge you to put forward a resolution at the next Council meeting that such a referendum be held.

On a personal note, I must express my disappointment at your apparent unwillingness, as mayor, to debate substantively the serious issues involved in development of Wellington's waterfront. A recent example of this occurred on the Mike Yardley Show when Mike asked you about my claim that, under these plans, a wall of buildings would be erected between the railway station and Oriental Bay. Rather than presenting a substantive counter argument, you chose to derogate me. Personal attack is not, and never will be, a substitute for informed public debate.

Sincerely,

Mary Varnham

For CHAFFERS PARK- MAKE IT HAPPEN!