A 5^thgeneration Aucklander, Kate lives in Herne Bay with her husband of 28 years, daughter and small dog.

 With her husband, she owns a software company helping manufacturers run effectively.  She has been in the software industry for more than 40 years (including time in UK, Kenya and Australia).  This is home.

 During 6 years on the Western Bays Community Board, Kate’s activities have included: Cox’s Bay clean up (still progressing), parking and traffic issues, several heritage projects, planning issues, improving our treescape, and helping people deal with Council.

 “We need to look after this beautiful and sometimes fragile place: the natural environment, the things our forebears have already contributed, and most of all, the people who live here now and those who will live here in generations to come.”

 For Your Community Voice vote for me and the CITY VISION team.

A City Vision Waitemata Local Board will:

• Stand with you and your community for a prosperous, secure, fair, and sustainable future
• Advocate for residents and be the strong community voice working with the Auckland Council and the Council Controlled Organisations to ensure local decisions are made locally
• Develop and enhance our open spaces, parks, playgrounds and recreational facilities for enjoyment by all
• Treasure our heritage buildings and encourage quality urban development
• Celebrate the unique character and culture of our diverse communities 
• Improve pedestrian safety, with slower traffic on residential streets, better footpaths and pedestrian-oriented street design
• Get our community moving with better cycling and walking infrastructure, effective public transport including support for fast tracking the CBD rail loop
• Make the most of our beautiful coast by developing a quality waterfront, improving access to the water, opening up a public harbour walkway and ending the problem of effluent overflow into our waterways
• Get behind our creative entrepreneurs, the Learning Quarter, and commercial centres to create jobs and thriving local businesses

City Vision represents the local Labour, Green and Alliance Parties and community independents, like me, who are progressive people keen to represent their communities but do not belong to any political party.

It is essential to elect people who can work together, respond to the needs of the community and take a strong leadership role.  For your Community Voice vote for me and the CITY VISION team.

Top 5 Issues

1. People in communities.
   Recognise and assist communities of place, play, hobbies, age, ethnicity, religion, and anything else people have in common.
   The city can be a very lonely place, or it can be alive and exciting.
   People connecting well with other people is what makes a place good to live, work, and play.
2. Reliable, easy to use public transport.
   While you can mostly get a bus in rush hour in Auckland, they are notoriously unreliable at other times.
   I have given up getting a bus into the city for meetings, as they are so often late - it is more reliable, and sometimes faster. to walk. For some reason, the bus home does mostly seem to be there, when the time is not so important.
   Ever tried to get a bus in the rain?
   Our bus stops (AdShell) are designed for display of advertisements in the streets, with scant attention to their supposedly major function of keeping passengers dry and out of the wind while waiting. This is a matter of urgency - it rains in Auckland. A lot.
3. Value our history.
   Our forefathers left us some beautiful buildings and suburbs, and it is up to us to look after them, adapting them to our current use (kitchens and bathrooms have changed!). This includes single buildings, and streetscapes such as the Herne Bay avenues, where I live.
4. Value our place.
   Auckland's physical position is probably the best in the world, with two fabulous harbours and the Gulf.
   This should be available for all to use, with coastal walkways, good access to the harbour for small boats, clean rainwater runoff going into the harbours.
   No high buildings on the waterfront blocking it for others.
   Site coverage from new buildings which allows rain to enter the soil.
   Encourage green roofs and walls
5. Encourage working from home.
   With fast reliable broadband, more people can work from home.
   This relieves the demand during rush hour, and enlivens local communities.
   Home Occupation rules would need to change so more people can work from residential properties.

Personal Profile

Business vs Council: different mind set

During the last 6 years on the Western Bays Community Board, I have learnt heaps.

A major lesson is the difference between Business and Council.

40+ years supplying and implementing computer software to help companies run better means I am very familiar with how companies operate. 

The objective of a commercial operation is return on shareholders' investment, on a short and/or long term basis.

The objective of public bodies like Council is to use the funds available to do the most public good.

Council planning must always be long term.  Councils cannot fold up if they are operating badly, as companies can.  (Auckland super city takes on all of the past and future responsibilities of the old councils.)

Visibility and accountability must be much more strict when handling public money, rather than private investment.

Budgets also bring problems, as council is dealing with such huge numbers (hundreds of millions of dollars).  This makes it very easy to loose sight of the small amounts of money, which can make all the difference to people's lives, and to the total spend.  For example, a grant of $200 can mean a community organisation can print brochures to tell people what they are about.  The ATA printing on paper costing $118 per ream, not the $7 reams most of us use, is a good example of this - they are spending over $300,000,000 of our money.  Scary.

SH20 taking 3 playing fields

The shortly to be approved State Highway 20 is partly tunnel, partly above ground.  Where it goes above ground, through what is now Allen Wood Reserve, 3 playing fields will be lost.  The tunnel could continue, but it would cost more.

 Our playing fields are now under stress, as more and more (mostly) young people are engaging in active sports.  

Grass growth struggles to cope with the current use.  As our population increases, we hope to have more youngsters out on the fields, but this will put more strain on those fields.

Artificial turfis the solution, when grass can no longer cope.  This turf is very expense, and would have to be fenced offto prevent other than planned use.  What looks like open fields now when practise or games are not in process will become fields of cages to keep the public off.  This will apply in places like the Domain, Grey Lynn Park, and Cox's Bay Park.

"Replacement" fields are being found to remediate SH20, but they should be additions to available parks.

Chinese Garden at Western Springs

There is a large piece of land opposite Western Springs Park, adjacent to the Horticultural building, which would be perfect for a walled Chinese garden.

It used be gardens maintained by Council, then was maintained by volunteers.  Now it is mown.

One bounary is the Northwestern Motorway.  The wall would provide sound proofing from that, and provide excellent visibility of where the gardens are to thousands of people every day.

Another boundary is Western Springs Road, facing Western Park.  There is a bus stop outside.  It is very close to motorway on and off ramps.  There is ample parking.

The vicinity includes, as well as Western Springs Lakeside Park, Auckland Zoo, MOTAT, and TAPAC.  MOTAT trams provide transport around these venues.

The currently proposed site is in Monte Cecelia Park, on land taken by removal of the school for open parkland.  In this place, a walled garden would not meet the objective of the school removal.  An unwalled garden would not have the ambiance and peace usually provided in a Chinese Garden.

Recourse Consents

If the government wanted to do something to improve local bodies, they should have rationalised definitions used in District Plans.  The same definitions could then be used through the country.  It might have taken 3 years, but would have led to major efficiency improvements.

Consents for items which fully meet all District Plan criteria should be cheap, and processed within 5 working days.

Penalties for saying an applications complies when it does not should be heavy, and relative to the value of the development.

Time allowed to process applications should depend on their size, complexity and compliance level.

Parking tickets

Fines for parking tickets should increase for those who regularly flout the regulations for their own convenience, but be fairly small for those who make the occasional mistake in parking time.

EG first parking ticket $12, second $24, third $48, fourth $96, fifth $192, etc.  All tickets within the preceding 2 years should be counted.  2 years without a ticket, and you start again.

 Residents' parking

For those who live in residential streets close to the city (most of our ward), ability to park in the street close to home is a problem.

This is often caused by "park and ride" people who drive in from outer suburbs, park, then take the bus or walk to work.

The offered solution is P180 restrictionin the street, so cars parking all day can be ticketed.  Residents can get resident permits, allowing 24x7 parking.  This sounds like a good ideat at first, but there are major flaws.

Each house is allowed 1 only permit, and many households hese days have more than 1 car.  No permit if you have any off-street parking.  No permit if your building contains multiple dwellings (blocks of units, divided houses), as these are supposed to have provided sufficient parking when they were built.

If you have more than 1 car in the household, then you have to drive to work, or you are likely to get a ticket outside where you live.

When visitors come to stay, they must remove their car during the working day, or they are likely to get a ticket.

Residents are mostly better off with unrestricted parking.  Once you have your car outside your place at 7am, you can leave it there all day, while you take the bus to work. 

The solution to this is better public transport.  We cannot stop people getting from home to work in the most convenient way.  What we can do is provide a way which is more convenient that driving to a suburb close to the city, parking, then walking or taking the bus.  This may be trains or buses between home and work, or an interim solution of built park and ride, with lots of covered parking and very frequent buses (along bus lanes).

The Guardians of our place 

There are many, many wonderful people who take some responsibility for looking after this great place where we live.  These are the people we all rely on to make this city work well.  They should be applauded.

This includes:

• -    people who mow their own berms
• -    people who rmove leaves from street drains outside their houses in autumn
• -    people who report maintenance required in parks
• -    people who note parking infringements, and report to council
• -    people who help other people in need
• -    lots and lots of really good people in our ward