More CBD apartments, carparks needed
“Wanted: People for CBD” Time to think big (Advocate, August 14, pages 1 and 2). Chris De Ath nailed it: “We’ve still got this small town mentality.”
My take on the issue after 25 years shopping in Whanga¯ rei is: earlypopulation residents enjoying the outskirts, open spaces living, evaded the importance of supporting central city retail shopping resulting in today’s 41 empty shops. Add to this decades of shortsighted councillors failing to inspire “inner-city living” accommodation along with an additional failure to warrant overenthused small shop developers to provide free off-road customer car parking ie Pak’nSave, New World, Countdown. Note: Necessary to cope with daily increasing non-retail shoppers creating vehicle traffic congestion.
Is it any wonder a central city “laneway” pedestrian shopping mall with no parking spaces has 12 empty shops while satellite shopping centres are thriving?
“Time to think big” calls for (1) building live-in apartments over Laurie Hall carpark with pedestrian bridge access to the Farmers store, (2) convert the ground floor of several 3-4 storey-plus buildings fronting the “laneway” shopping mall into carparks and upper floors into “inner-city living” apartments.
Council incentives: Compensate relocated affected businesses with
revenue generated from a 5 per cent rate increase for five years. Stop whinging folks. When I left Mangawhai Heads four and a half years ago I paid $3623 in rates. Up here I pay a piddly $2732 and my fuel account reads all but zero.
Noel Paget Whanga¯rei