On Thursday 20 February, the Howick Local Board held our first business meeting of the new year. Here’s a summary of some of the key discussions and outcomes. At the end there are links to the official minutes and recordings of our meetings.
🗣 Deputations on Redoubt/Murphys Road intersection, Howick Little Theatre
📑 Feedback on voting sign locations, traffic bylaw review, proposed plan change for filming on Sites and Places of Significance to Mana Whenua, Fix and Finish Fund, Local Government (Water Services) Bill, Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill.
✅ Approval of new transport projects, road names
📊 Reviewed our Quarter Two Performance Report
After the initial formalities of the welcome, we noted the declarations of interest and confirmed the previous minutes.
We acknowledged three local residents who had been recognised in the New Year Royal Honours:
🎖Denise Astill on her appointment as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the prevention of foetal anticonvulsant syndromes.
🎖 Dinesh Khadka, JP on his appointment as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the Nepalese community.
🎖 Reay Neben on her award of the Kings Service Medal for services to print media and the community.
We received a deputation from Adarshpreet Bhullar and Frank Chen, two second year Civil Engineering students at the University of Auckland. They presented suggestions to address the dangerous intersection at Murphys Road and Redoubt Road. We asked Auckland Transport to remain in contact with them to ensure their ideas where considered.
Our second deputation was from Howick Little Theatre, with President Laurie Mills and Office Manager Ellie Barrow presenting the highlights and successes of their activities and programmes. We’re proud to provide them operational funding, plus a community grant last year to help rebuild their roof.
Every month we allocate a slot for our Ward Councillors to provide an update. Unfortunately, due to scheduling clashes, they are usually unable to attend. To accommodate this, they agreed to provide a written report when there are board-specific updates to share. No report was received for this meeting.
I presented my Chairpersons Report for the month, detailing what we had been focused on since the last meeting. I noted the busy end to 2024 and start to 2025, along with the transport projects that were making good progress.
We received an update from Auckland Transport regarding our local board transport capital fund. Due to savings returned from completed projects, we had some funding to allocate. We asked Auckland Transport to get underway with pedestrian safety improvements on Sunnyview Avenue (near Shelly Park Primary School) and Stanniland Street (near Pakūranga Park Retirement Village), with Tiraumea Drive (near Anchorage Park School) to be considered if more funds became available.
On another transport related matter, we provided feedback on voting sign locations for the 2025 local elections. While candidates can arrange with private properties to use fences, Auckland Council provides a couple of public locations to ensure equal access. We recommended that the site at the Cascades roundabout be removed (due to safety concerns) and add a new site in Flat Bush (either on Stancome Road or Frank Bunce Reserve). We also asked for advice on a potential ban on all election signage, which has been suggested before.
Our final transport matter was providing feedback into the traffic bylaw review which had been out for public consultation. It had very low turnout (only 10 responses from our area) so it was hard to judge the community view. But we continued to support the simplification of bylaws and reiterated our previous feedback that we “acknowledge that intensification of housing is putting pressure on existing parking capacity, resulting in more parking off the roadway and more needs to be done to address the issues that cause and result from this.”
We provided feedback on a proposed plan change for filming on Sites and Places of Significance to Mana Whenua, supporting it as a practical improvement that would reduce cost while encouraging Auckland Council to continue to work with mana whenua to ensure that their feedback and input is considered and respected.
We approved the extension of the road name Whakatupu Road in Flat Bush and also a new road name Wakawaka Lane in Highbook.
We provided our feedback into the Fix and Finish Fund. As part of the Long Term Plan signed off last year, $20M will be put aside from the sale of the airport shares to fix or finish projects within the legacy Auckland City or Manukau City boundaries. We supported the equitable split which would see Howick receive $2.8M, while suggesting a hybrid model may deliver more value. We nominated the Flat Bush Community Centre & Library as a candidate for the fund, given the project was initiated under the Manukau City Council.
We provided our feedback into Auckland Council's submission on the Local Government (Water Services) Bill, with a strong focus on ensuring that locals continued to have a say in how their water is managed. “While the Board supports efforts to improve water services, central Government reforms ought to be fair, efficient, and responsive to Auckland’s needs.”
We received our Quarter Two Performance Report which showed that 93% (113) of our projects were on track for delivery. The remaining 8 projects have been deferred or cancelled to the following financial year. One big highlight was that Te Taiwhanga Taiohi East Auckland Youth Space has had over 15,000 young people since April 2024!
We noted our feedback into the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill, which we’d provided outside of the meeting schedule due to short timeframes created by Parliament. We “acknowledge the need for more housing to address the challenges of housing affordability and population growth, but that this should be delivered in a deliberate manner using appropriate planning and zoning mechanisms.”
We noted our workshop records and forward governance work calendar before closing the meeting at 2:32pm.
Minutes of the meeting are available here:
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Open/2025/02/20250220_HW_MIN_11589_WEB.htm
along with related attachments like presentations here:
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Open/2025/02/20250220_HW_ATT_11589_WEB.htm
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Open/2025/02/20250220_HW_MAT_11589_WEB.htm
A recording of the meeting is available here, along with previous meetings: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNiuqKCzobSzQ05kCv2JI2iefmDp2_tEh
Our next normal Business Meeting is scheduled for Thursday 20 March at 12noon at the Pakuranga Library building in Aylesbury Street.
These are open to the public to attend and observe, although you need to request a slot if you would like to speak (so we can make sure we provide time).