On Thursday 17 April, the Howick Local Board held our third business meeting of the 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 from Pakūranga Early Learning Centre, New Zealand Ethnic Social Services, and public forum from Howick Ratepayers and Residents Association.
📑 Feedback on decision-making resulting from disestablishment of Eke Panuku and downsizing of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, draft Contributions Policy 2025, Time of Use Charging Bill, proposed dog policy and bylaw, proposed wastewater environmental performance standards
✅ Approval of Local Board Transport Capital projects, endorsed Auckland Open Space, Sport and Recreation Strategy, Community Grant guidelines and Round Two Grants, Howick Play Plan.
After the initial formalities of the welcome, we approved Deputy Bo Burns and Member Bruce Kendall joining online, and accepted an apology from Member Katrina Bungard for her absence. We noted the declarations of interest and confirmed the previous minutes.
We acknowledged Subash Chandar K on being named the Local Hero of the Year at the 2025 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards. A mathematics teacher at Ormiston Junior College in Flat Bush, he has been described as “a game-changing mathematics educator who has made a significant impact on students across Aotearoa New Zealand since 2013”.
We received a deputation from the Barnardos Early Learning Centre Pakuranga. They explained the mahi they do looking after local tamariki, especially those with financial challenges. More than just childcare, they provide wrap around services for whānau in need. With the ongoing cost of living crisis, their services are more in demand than ever before. They invited us to visit them to see their work in action, which we’ll do in the near future.
Our second deputation was from New Zealand Ethnic Social Services. They’ve been operating since 2003 and have evolved their services to meet the needs of their communities such as wellbeing and navigation, counselling and mental health, youth services, and increasingly dealing with family harm. While they provide services to anyone who needs them, they specialise in Middle Eastern communities with the ability to provide services in English, Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, and Hindi.
We had a public forum item from the Howick Ratepayers and Residents Association Inc. Janet Dickson raised concerns about the limited protections in place for Stockade Hill and that their attempt to have the site heritage listed was waiting for an official outcome. We asked staff to provide us with an update on the listing process.
Next Auckland Transport presented options for our Local Board Transport Capital Fund – provided for boards to deliver small transport projects in addition to those led by Auckland Transport. Last year AT delivered safety improvements on The Parade in Bucklands Beach and we asked them to complete speed and pedestrian surveys to confirm these had worked as well as identifying other opportunities. Together with feedback from the public consultation, they had identified some additional sites further north on The Parade plus the intersection at Laings Road. After robust discussion, we agreed to fund the remaining sites (subject to public consultation) and pedestrian improvements for Cook Street. We nominated pedestrian crossing improvements near the Kilimanjaro Drive playground as a contingency project if funds became available.
Late last year, the Governing Body (Mayor and Councillors) voted to change the structure for the Council Controlled Organisations. Eke Panuku would be disestablished (which we opposed), with urban regeneration and property management moved into Auckland Council. And Tātaki Auckland Unlimited’s economic development function would be moved to Auckland Council, while they would retain major events and management of regional facilities like Aotea Centre and Auckland Zoo. We had the opportunity to provide our feedback on the new allocation of decision-making, which we supported while stressing that council must provide sufficient resources to support the increased local board decision-making including access to quality advice in a timely manner.
We endorsed the updated draft Manaaki Tāmaki Makaurau: Auckland Open Space, Sport and Recreation Strategy. Our previous feedback was that it lacked consideration of local board decision-making which staff had addressed in the updated version. We agreed with a capacity-based approach which means council should focus on delivering open spaces than currently enabled in high- and medium-density areas where residents have low or moderate levels of provision.
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 success of Te Tuhi’s Celebrating Culture Pop-Up, our EnviroSchools Tour, and the strong support for Marina Fitness (due to be decided in May).
Next we approved next year’s Community Grant programme, with similar guidelines and dates to this year. We stressed the need for groups to provide accountability reporting so we had confidence in how public money was being spent.
We then worked through the Local Grants Round Two applications, which saw 41 applications for $361k. Unfortunately, several applications were not eligible as they had not completed their accountability reports from previous grants – while we wanted to support these projects, we must ensure that public money is appropriately spent so couldn’t grant them more money. We approved a total of $126,177.73.
Next we adopted our first Howick Play Plan which provides information and project suggestions to increase the range of play opportunities we offer. Much of this is less formal play which is quicker and cheaper to provide, allowing us to do more for less. As we tackle the challenges of limited funding, having more flexibility for providing play across the rohe is a significant step forward.
We provided our feedback on the draft Contributions Policy 2025 which will set the development contributions for the next few years (the Government has signalled they plan to replace the system with something better). We asked that there is greater transparency over how the money is collected, kept, and spent for the benefit of local boards, council, developers, and the public.
Next we considered our input into the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill. We’ve provided some early feedback before the legislation was developed, asking for a system that is effective, transparent, and does not unfairly punish those without alternative transport choice. The Board had concerns that the alternative options (like public transport) were not sufficient to provide residents with real choice and any congestion charge would be almost unavoidable. Therefore, we did not support the implementation of Time of Use Charging until there are sufficient alternative transport options that provide real alternatives. Until we have a more reliable, better connected and faster transport system we cannot ask commuters to pay more via time of use charging.
We provided our feedback into council’s proposal to amend dog policy and bylaw (separate from the local dog access rules). We noted that despite the strong response, the demographic breakdown suggests that the input is not representative of the entire population of Auckland or Howick. We supported the request of the Professional Dog Walkers Association (with 3,456 signatures) to explore a license for professional dog walkers as a sensible compromise that will provide for greater control of dogs without making commercial operations impossible. We also reiterated our previous resolution (supported by public feedback) that we “believe that enforcement is critical to the success of any rule and continue to advocate for greater resources to enforce this and other bylaws.”
We noted our urgent decision into Auckland Council's submission on the proposed wastewater environmental performance standards, which was required before our meeting so had to be managed outside of that process. Our feedback asked the percentage of discharge is managed so that the receiving environment is not overwhelmed and kept below scientifically proven percentages ensuring native biodiversity is not degraded, and the ability to swim is maintained. And where the receiving environment is currently being overwhelmed by discharge (as a percentage), that urgency is given to ensuring that planning is done and made publicly available as to when water quality improvements will be seen.
We noted our workshop records and forward governance work calendar before closing the meeting at 3:09pm.
Minutes of the meeting are available here:
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Open/2025/04/20250417_HW_MIN_11591_WEB.htm
along with related attachments like presentations here:
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Open/2025/04/20250417_HW_ATT_11591_WEB.htm (warning this is large with many attachments)
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Open/2025/04/20250417_HW_MAT_11591_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 15 May 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).