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The public can look forward to yet another round of consultation from Auckland Council on its draft Golf Investment Plan, despite the plan already getting the thumbs down some local boards, Golf NZ and countless other groups and individuals.
At a Parks, Arts, Community and Events (PACE) meeting on September 22, Councillors were divided on whether to approve the plan, consult further, or reject it altogether. It took the chair’s casting vote to get the motion recommending further consultation over the line.
Rodney Councillor Greg Sayers wanted the plan overturned and the process started again from scratch.
“There has been an omission of the contribution, the financial, the social, the environmental benefits [from the golf sector],” he said. “They are just not captured. Before we move forward that needs to be clear.”
Hibiscus and Bays Councillor Wayne Walker agreed that Council should go back and start over.
“Essentially what we have got is a fudged report and a fudged process. The information is deficient,” Walker said.
“The underlying agenda behind this is, frankly, to sell stuff off,” Walker said. “We are not engaging genuinely with the community and we are not putting the appropriate values on [properties]. What we are trying to do is to eliminate open space and park space and recreation space across Auckland, which will be to the detriment of generations to come.”
Golf New Zealand was a key invisible player during discussions as it issued a legal challenge to Auckland Council just days prior to the meeting.
Community and social policy general manager Kataraina Maki said the legal challenge meant that approving the plan was risky. Therefore, officers recommended further consultation in order to reinforce that it had conducted “open, fair and representative” consultation.
Responding to claims the consultation process was flawed committee chair Cr Alf Filipaina said the only reason people were saying it was a flawed process was because they had been listening to Golf New Zealand.
“I am not going to listen to Golf New Zealand. I am going to listen to our staff who are experienced and who have come back to us with options.”
Mayor Phil Goff said that rejecting the plan would be a waste after six years.
“Rejecting the draft plan would say that the status quo, and the fact that 93 per cent of Aucklanders who own this land will not have access to it, is fine,” Goff said.
He said St Andrews golf course in Scotland had opened up on Sundays for the wider public to enjoy.
“If St Andrews can do it, what golf course in New Zealand thinks their status is too grand and too great that they cannot involve the wider public?”
Council first engaged with the public on a plan to increase access to publicly owned golf courses in 2016. Earlier this year, it undertook another round of community engagement on an updated version of the plan, receiving 2203 pieces of feedback.
Council maintains that public access to its 535 hectares of golf course land is limited and that more space is needed for open space, community facilities, housing and business.
It says exclusive use of the publicly owned land – which it said had an estimated value of $2.9 billion in 2018 – for golf alone was “unsustainable”.
Cr Chris Darby, Christine Fletcher, Richard Hills, Tracy Mulholland, Daniel Newman, Greg Sayers, Sharon Stewart, Wayne Walker and John Watson voted against having another consultation process, while Paul Young abstained.
Omaha comes out swinging on golf plan
The Omaha Beach Golf Club strongly opposes any suggestion that the course in its present form could be reconfigured or “repurposed”.
Omaha is one of the 13 courses included in Auckland Council’s draft Golf Investment Plan. In its submission on the plan, club spokesperson Richard Brabant says the club is well used by both members and non-members, has a strong women’s and juniors programme, and provides major benefits for Omaha’s natural environment. He says the plans casts uncertainty over lease renewal arrangements, which will be detrimental to investment in the courses and their facilities.
He adds that the plan also includes information that is “out-of-date, incorrect or misleading”, and he describes the value that Council puts on the total amount of land involved ($2.9 billion) as a fiction.
“There was no consultation with the golf clubs before preparation and publication of the draft plan,” he says. “The clubs were given a single opportunity to make a written submission and were able to make a presentation to their Local Board, as Omaha did. The two requests I made on behalf of Omaha to speak to the Parks, Arts, Community and Events committee were refused.”
Omaha golf course started as a nine-hole course developed privately as part of the original northern settlement and was in use from 1975. A further nine holes were added around 2004 and it was then vested in the Rodney District Council.
“Both the original leases from the District Council and the 30-year lease recently granted by Auckland Council are long-term, and at a nominal rental in recognition of the land transfer arrangements, the privately funded design and construction of the golf course, and that its continuing development and maintenance is a private and not a public investment.”
Brabant says these long term leases have provided a secure tenure for the club, enabling long term planning and investment decisions. At no time during the previous 30 years of the first lease or since renewal has any financial contribution been made by Council. The Omaha course has always been available for play by the public, ‘green fee’ players, whether members of another golf club or not and there has been a substantial increase in the number of green fee players.
“As a result, Omaha is enjoyed by social and casual golfers of all ages and abilities, as well as for competition golf. It represents a valued community facility, maintained and operated by the local community through its golf club without any investment or other obligation imposed on the Auckland Council or ratepayers.”
Brabant added that the course provided major benefits to Omaha’s natural environment and one of its defining features was the integration it has with the regionally significant Omaha-Taniko swamp forest.
The club has nearly 1000 members with more than 32,000 rounds played last year.
