Our Future City
Mayor’s column
Maori leader Sir Apirana Ngata once said,
He aha te mea nui i te ao
Maku e ki atu
He tangata he tangata he tangata
What is the most important thing in the world?
I say to you It is people, it is people, it is people
I am proud of the community plan. I want to congratulate my fellow councillors, community board members and the great many people, groups and organisations who took time to think about where we are as a city, about where they want us to be in 10 years and who gave us such thoughtful feedback.
Christchurch City now stretches from the Waimakariri River at McLeans Island to the Akaroa Heads. It is a great place to call home, a great place to work or set up in business and it’s a great place to relax, play and learn. We all want to keep it that way and this plan is the City Council’s best estimate of how it can contribute to that vision.
The Council is making a commitment to ensure the standards of service are maintained, or in many cases improved, and to confront the big issues facing our quality of life such as traffic congestion, growth pressure and environmental issues.
We have listened to the wave of feedback which rejected an idea about moving away from small community libraries. As a result, we are going back to the drawing board on this one. There will be no closures. We have budgeted instead for funds to work on developing our urban villages so that we promote world-class urban planning right through the city. Personally, I think the “city of villages” idea makes sense and perhaps the way forward is a stronger network of small libraries rather than a smaller number of big ones. That decision is for a later day and for the whole Council to discuss and decide.
We’ve put more money aside for roads and footpaths. We’ve also put funds aside for more cycleways. We’re providing for collecting our waste in a different way and have set up a working party to plan for this.
The people said urban sprawl isn’t what they want and the Council has listened. We will be building some of the proposed swimming pools earlier than first planned.
We have continued with the funding for the regeneration of the Botanic Gardens and made a decision which may free up more money each year for projects to further enhance our Garden City image. We have heard loud and clear that the Garden City identity is one you want us to take forward with renewed emphasis and we’ve put extra money aside for this as well.
We heard from many environmental groups, many of them with wonderful ideas, and we will be calling them together to try to agree some priorities and see how best we can all work together on these issues.
Achieving the kind of future that ensures our and our children’s prosperity cannot be the sole responsibility of local government, however. We read many submissions from people with interesting ideas about health, education and other areas which are traditionally the job of central government. We will be calling together the heads of government departments to talk about many issues you raised in submissions.
As Mayor, I will be spending more time publicly, and privately, making our voice heard in Wellington for a more generous slice of the funding cake. Our long-term community plan sets out the road ahead for the City Council. Like all budgets, the financial information in the plan is bulging with facts and figures. Ultimately, still, it is as I said at the start; all about human activity, us as we want to see ourselves develop.
Mayor of Christchurch
www.ccc.govt.nz/mayor |
