Simmons chips into the rough
The Opportunities Party leader Geoff Simmons is going for a holein-one on a par five.
In other words, he has to get enough votes to get into Parliament, find a coalition partner to work with, and have enough bargaining power to leverage a Wellington-centric idea into a legislation change.
Then, if he gets that law change, he may just get the bulldozers running to turn onequarter of Berhampore Golf Course into 1000 homes.
It is a move that would require a change to the Wellington Town Belt Act, which means that, under the law, the land is retained as public space for public recreation.
A massive hurdle? ‘‘It is but so is our housing crisis,’’ Simmons said, on a day there was an ironically large number of golfers on the city council course.
Simmons reckons 1000 homes could be built on a quarter of the golf course land under Wellington City Council’s draft Spatial Plan.
He foresaw another quarter being used for recreation and half staying as a golf course that would have to go from 18 to nine holes.
Wellington city councillor Teri O’Neill, who holds the parks, beaches, and open spaces portfolio, said that while there was some validity in the idea, it would not get off the ground, due to the protection the land had under the Town Belt Act.
But the land at the Miramar Golf Club, next to Wellington Airport, was a better option for housing as it did not have the same protection, she said. Rongotai Labour MP Paul Eagle is actively working on the Miramar golf course idea, which would see the Government buying half the club’s land and turning it into housing, while also redeveloping Strathmore Park behind it.
The airport already owned the other half of the course but Eagle would be open to seeing if the airport could also sell that. ‘‘If we are going to talk golf courses, Geoff Simmons has got the wrong golf course.’’ The 2016 Wellington Town Belt Act, which added further protection to the Town Belt, that had been around for more than a century, showed how much Wellingtonians wanted to retain the public land, Eagle said.
‘‘If he was a local resident and committed to the electorate, he would know that Wellingtonians have fought to keep this as green space,’’ Eagle said.
Simmons and Eagle are both candidates in the Rongotai electorate. The idea of turning part of the Berhampore course into housing land has already been a political dead duck. Failed 2019 Wellington mayoral hopeful Conor Hill proposed halving the 18-hole golf course and creating a 9-hectare public recreation space and a 9ha housing development with affordable housing and social housing elements.
In 2018, the council suggested cutting the golf course from 18 to nine holes but quickly ditched the idea – but not before it was revealed that it had installed spy cameras to see how many people were using the course.