Campaigns:
These pages are based on an old web site and are out of date. We've been trying to get them updated for a number of months, but unfortunately Mary Varnham (the campaign organiser) has been too busy. At the bottom of this page is an update from a recent newspaper article
Introduction
The Chaffers site, 3.2 hectares, or just over 8 acres, between the new Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Oriental Parade - southern boundary Cable Street, northern edge the harbour
This piece of land is very big in fact it is over twice the size of the entire grassed area of Athletic Park. It is very valuable because it offers views of our harbour and its varied activities, surrounding suburbs, Somes Island, Petone and even as far as the Orongorongos. It is next to the new museum and very close to where many people live and work
Many people think it could be a great place for a large park where we could all walk, rollerblade, jog and skate, where we could meet friends and talk and play, where we could enjoy open-air concerts and cafes and feed birds.
It could be a great place for schools or tourists visiting the capital city to take a break and enjoy a beautiful safe relaxing environment. Some people have suggested there could be a saltwater aquarium there. Others have suggested a skate park, a children's playground, a wind garden with chimes or a special garden such as Chinese or art deco.
Chaffers could offer many things for many people.
Recent History
In 1988 the Chaffers site, along with much of the waterfront, was transferred to be held in trust by what is now Lambton Harbour Management Ltd, a wholly Wellington City Council-owned company set up to develop the city waterfront on behalf of the people of Wellington. A number of buildings were demolished and the present temporary park established. Other buildings between Chaffers and Barnett Streets remained, tenanted by various small businesses. Lambton Harbour Management presently plans to demolish these buildings before Te Papa opens next February.
The company originally planned a large townhouse development on Chaffers. Before this could be built, public dissatisfaction with other waterfront developments such as the Event Centre and Retail Centre led the council to call a moratorium in May 1996.
See the Historical page for the origins of the site
Public Consultation
A Community Consultative Committee reported that the public wanted less commercial development and more open public space, including green space, on the waterfront. However options presented to the public by the city council in July 1997 showed a diminution of open space, and many new buildings. Approximately five-sixths of the Chaffers site was to be used for residential and commercial development.
Chaffers Park - Make It Happen!
After two public meetings in July expressed overwhelming opposition to all three options, a group of Wellingtonians launched a campaign, Chaffers Park - Make It Happen!, to have the entire Chaffers site reserved for a park.
We argued that
- No more public waterfront land should be privatised.
Wellington's central city area urgently needed green open space (it has the lowest proportion of 20 western world capitals).
The need for soft, human recreational spaces would continue to grow with increased use of the waterfront, and more people living in the inner city.
- Chaffers was the last chance of creating a large green city park.
- A park would be our gift to future generations, as the Town Belt and Botanical Gardens were to our generation.
- It would enhance the new museum and increase enjoyment of visitors and locals.
What's Been Achieved?
Our campaign has attracted tremendous support from members of the public, residents' associations, Waterfront Watch and many other organisations.
The council has responded with two new Chaffers options:
- 100% public open space option: A landscaped park on the whole site (with buildings only for maintenance and public enjoyment of a park).
- Mixed-use option: A smaller park with commercial residential buildings along the Cable Street edge of the park. We estimate these buildings and associated services would occupy from one-third to one-half of the site.
We support the 100% public open space option. Residential commercial buildings in the park would:
- Lead to demands by the apartment dwellers for restrictions on public use of the park, making it essentially a private park for a few people.
- Diminish public access and the feeling the park is for everyone.
- Create a wall and block views of the waterfront. Too much of the harbour is already separated from the city by tall buildings.
What About The Herd Street Post Office?
The city council has decided this art deco building should be preserved if possible. It could be retained where it is or moved, depending on the design of the park. If you have strong views on the issue, now is a good time to tell the mayor and council.
Wellington's "village-green" used for elite harbour-front apartments
Update from a March newspaper article by Don Polly:
Wellington's newly strengthened conservative council team approved seven multi-story apartment blocks to front the harbour on the controversial Chaffer's Park site. The project is expected to provide "expensive to very expensive" housing for almost 700 people.
Mayor Mark Blumsky leading the conservative Wellington Alive team described the council decision as excellent news for Wellington. The Chaffer's Park vote was a surprising shift to right for the new council. A breakdown of the vote could prove more interesting in the short term and significant in the long term, than the result itself.
Up to one third of the original Chaffer's Park area, and virtually the whole of the park's shoreline will be taken to build five of the luxury apartment blocks each four to seven stories high. A large semi-circular sea canal dug through the park will isolate the apartment complex on man-made "Herd Island." The existing Herd Street (former post- office/Telecom) Building will be renovated to accommodate an estimated 50 of the anticipated 235 apartments, and restructured to provide a not altogether satisfying "peek-a-boo" glimpse of the harbour from the park.
Two additional apartment blocks will be built alongside the canal next to Te Papa National Museum. What is left of Chaffer's Park will remain on the city side of the canal. A 3.6 metre high landscaped stone wall windbreak, with two access paths will run along the park's Cable Street southern perimeter. The whole project is estimated to cost ratepayers about $16m.
Ruth Harrison, Executive Officer at Wellington City Council did not have further details of building structures. "We are only dealing with the concept plan which must be translated into a design plan," she says.
It was a bitter Christmas pill for proponents of a 100% Chaffer's Park. A mid-December vote was expected - the result was not. A majority of council including two Labour and two Wellington Alive councillors, had previously expressed support for the original concept of a 100% Chaffer's Park on the Wellington waterfront.
Making the big difference in the initial 9 to 5 vote count were three Labour council members who signed a surprise deal with Wellington Alive shortly after the October election.
Then re-elected Mayor Mark Blumsky and his seven-strong Wellington Alive team had reason to worry about maintaining the conservative majority. For the first time in more than 10 years, a left-leaning group of six mostly new council members, including Alliance, Green, and Labour, in addition four openly sympathetic Independents held a clear voting majority. The unexpected Labour defection changed that, prompting angry calls of "treachery," "true to form," and "old habits," referring to the 1984 Labour Government's surprise right-wing agenda.
Re-elected southern ward Labour council member Sue Piper defended the Labour action. "We have no regrets. The current mode is for people in government to cooperate. We are cooperating," she says. "Wellington Alive people are more disciplined. The working agreement (with Wellington Alive) was made because we had a chance to pursue policy improvements than we might not otherwise have.
"We explained our position to fifty Labour Party members afterwards," Piper says. "Some did not agree with us, but the majority were happy." She says the Labour councillors only agreed to support Kerry Prendergast (Wellington Alive) for Deputy Mayor, and to have an open mind on other issues. The Mayor's team gave the Labour members several concessions including public ownership of both the airport and water; housing rentals to be reduced to 70% of market charges and no change in the existing uniform annual charges.
Opponents of the Labour deal with Wellington Alive say that apart from the lack of principle, the deal Labour made was very short-sighted. "Those concessions they talk about, and much, much more, would have come from a left-coalition majority on council," one Independent councillor says. "These Labour people can no longer count on Independent support. They are being used, I think they know that, and now find themselves in a terrible bind."
Labour opposition leader Helen Clark, seeking to establish a new Labour government this year with Alliance while desperately trying to shed a similar image of party betrayal, was reported as being "dismayed and surprised" by the local Labour action, which she described as unfortunate. Alliance leader Jim Anderton took a surprisingly conciliatory stance at what appeared to be an act of bad faith. "I'm not defending what's happened in Wellington," he says in a Dominion report. "We're taking steps to see it doesn't happen at parliamentary level."
Outraged, Cr Sue Kedgley, (Green), the unsuccessful left-group's choice for Deputy Mayor, believes "the people have already spoken on Chaffer's Park. Seventy percent of the voters in an independent poll clearly rejected what this council has approved. This makes a complete mockery of the consultation process. What the people of the city have said they want, over and over again, is access to the harbour."
Cr Mary Varnham, (Ind), who led the inner-city polling count on a 100% park platform says the decision was "really a vote to do nothing for years to come."
"I just don't think (Wellington Council's) Lambton Harbour Management will be able to do it. They will, I am absolutely certain, ask the ratepayers for more and more money and they won't get it without a fight." Varnham says the idea is to sell development sites and use part of that to develop the rest of the park. "I think the public is very much aware, that in effect, the council has agreed to alienate public land for private profit." She says public resistance will effectively stop council's Herd Island plan from going ahead.
Varnham says her commitment to a Wellington "village-green" came from living in New York City for seven years, where world-famous Central Park "has been the saving grace for inner-city Manhattan. Wellington is becoming the same sort of city, where a large inner-city park is becoming absolutely necessary." Varnham says the well-known Wellington green-belt, "as great as it is, is not a park, nor does it meet the requirements for a village-green."
Varnham referred to comments by visiting Professor Peter Newman from the School of Transport and Urban Studies at the University of Freemantle in Perth. In 1996, Wellington was part of a study measuring the rate of people moving back to the inner city. Professor Newman noted during a recent series of lectures in New Zealand that Wellington "is urbanising faster than any city in the world," citing the need to retain open spaces in the inner city.
Two active lobby groups continue to resist the council's plan. Resource consents will be needed for each building, building height limits need to be overcome, district plan variation and environmental considerations are expected to last well beyond the current council's tenure. Public response opposing the harbour-front apartment blocks is expected to increase substantially after construction starts. Successful long-term public opposition to unpopular construction has a precedent in Wellington Region. Transit NZ's push for cheaper bypasses and road widening through west coast communities has moved very slowly for more than a decade against the more popular Transmission Gully alternative. (The Authority, Aug/Sep 1998)
The mayor accepts that council will be seeking $10m additional funds for the park, and that if no commercial spaces are sold, council would be seeking a further $4m. He says that public approval for additional funding was received after the Draft Annual Plan last June when over 1500 submissions, many including the park, were received on council proposals. "We will not seek a referendum, but we will maintain liaison with the public through a new consultative committee," the mayor says.
Last year, Lambton Harbour Community Consultative Committee on behalf of Lambton Harbour Management presented four options on Chaffer's Park for public consideration, reporting back to council early in December. Option #1 called for 100% park space. Option #2 (eventually selected by council but receiving only 13% public support) permitted private or commercial buildings on the harbour-front and next to Te Papa museum. Option #3, (strongly preferred by the public) permitted commercial buildings of only three stories on the city-side of the park and required the Herd Street Building be demolished or moved. Option #4 permitted private buildings on virtually all sides of the park. (Some sources within council say that Option #1 received equal support with Option #3.)
Conveniently, the Herd Street Building had been declared a heritage site of sorts and was safe from demolition. Removing the building anywhere else for an estimated $14m, was patently not acceptable.
"Option 3 is what 70% of the public was in favour of, but it was not a viable option, and people were not asked for further preference," Mayor Blumsky says. "I feel confident the public will recognise that council has selected the best possible alternative."
Apart from what has already been sold off, the Wellington shoreline is now wholly owned by the city, and subsequent development is the responsibility of the city. Every major development on the harbour foreshore has involved struggle between private investment and public access, or worse, between private ownership and public ownership. Development sites, past, present and future, real or threatened, sound like a roll call of famous battles: Queens Wharf; the Casino; Frank Kitts Park; the Lagoon; Taranaki Wharf; Chaffer's Park; Herd Island; Te Papa Museum; Queens Wharf North…
Over the years, private interests seem to have won their share of battles, and more. This trend is not only continuing. It seems to be increasing. The roll call grows.
Get Involved!
See the Get Involved page for ways to support the campaign, counsellors' opinions on the park, and cool badges and T-shirts to buy
More Information
See the Press Releases, Newsletters, and Letters pages for more information