Drawn-out processes delay city’s community projects
Red tape has cost a proposed community garden a whole season of potential harvest in Palmerston North.
The Papaioea Pasifika Community Trust wants a licence to use a 27-square metre strip of land at Bill Brown Park in Havelock Ave to grow vegetables.
It made a comprehensive submission to the city council in November, and it has taken until April to get to a hearing of submissions from the public, a process required under the Reserves Act, and it will be May before the council deliberates on those submissions and makes a decision.
Umbrella group Environment Network Manawatū communications and events leader Helen King spoke in support of granting the licence for a project that was aligned with the goals of Manawatū Food Action Network for building food security and strengthening communities.
She asked if there was anything councillors at the strategy and finance committee meeting yesterday could do to make the process easier.
King said there were not many strong opinions against the proposal – only three of 48 submissions were in opposition – and while she was hesitant to use the word “fast-track”, she thought the process did not need to be so hard.
Community Trust chairman Sonny Liuvaie said gaining access to the land had been a huge barrier and a challenge for the group. It had taken almost a year to design the project and make the application for consent to create the garden. It had been a tedious process that had been really frustrating, he said.
The community garden project was not the only one caught up in a drawnout process that inched another step forward at the meeting.
The committee also heard submissions on the proposal to grant a lease at Opie Reserve to Te Kōhanga Reo O Ngāti Hineaute Ki Rangitāne of Manawatū to develop a long-held aspiration for a larger kōhanga and an urban marae.
It had earlier been through another process to change the status of the underused reserve from recreation to local purpose community use. That decision was made in June.
Another round of consultation was needed to clear the way for the council to grant the lease, which drew 108 submissions, with all but 17 in support.
The committee will consider those submissions and make a recommendation on granting the lease in May, after which council property manager Bryce Hosking said it could take a few weeks to sign the deal, if that was what the council decided.
Cr Billy Meehan said he was frustrated by the amount of red tape that seemed to go on and on. “It seems like it has taken years to get here. If anything could be done, it could have been up and running by now.”