Invercargill City Council considers selling off public parks

The Invercargill City Council is considering the sale of almost 32 hectares of its public parks as part of an overhaul of its reserves network.

Fairfax Media has reported that the proposal was contained in the Council's draft parks strategy, prepared by Xyst Consultancy during the past 12 months and presented at a recent Council Infrastructure and Services Committee meeting.

Presenting a vision for the future of public parks in Invercargill , Council Parks Manager Robin Pagan explained that a provisional list of parks and reserves which could be sold, totalling 31.8 hectares, was included in the strategy, stating "it's (parks) in areas where there's no growth and we can't foresee there being growth for a huge number of years."

Pagan stated that parks and reserves in areas where there were more popular or better-equipped reserves nearby were also being considered for disposal, stating that there were a number of things to work through before the strategy could be put into practice, such as the status of land derived from the Crown, which could not be easily sold.

However, Mayor Tim Shadbolt raised concerns about public reaction to selling off park land, statting "the minute you sell a reserve ... a huge rally cry goes out and people will fight."

The strategy also recommended the council spend an extra $1.1 million in the next decade to upgrade those parks and reserves it was not considering selling off.

Some reserves required upgrades of playground, toilet, or car park amenities, while others needed park signs replaced.

Part of the money needed for the upgrade would be re-allocated from other areas of the parks budget, Pagan explained, highlighting that compared with other centres in New Zealand, Invercargill was lacking in quality neighbourhood parks.

Pagan added "some of these small neighbourhood parks aren't quite big enough to fulfil the communities' activities."

The parks identified for potential sale were in areas where there were already sufficient neighbourhood parks, or growth was not expected in those areas.

The idea to sell off parks was previously mooted in the council's Big Picture DVD, released in 2011.

In the DVD, Mayor Shadbolt said Invercargill might have an oversupply of small neighbourhood parks and the council was investigating if any of them should be "rationalised".

Our members in the deep south may have seen an interesting recent article in the Southland Times titled Council considers selling off parks'. The scenario is that Invercargill City Council are investigating selling 32 hectares of its parks during an overhaul of its reserves network, in areas where there's been no growth and there is no foreseeable growth in the near future, or where there are better equipped and better utilised parks nearby.

Commenting on the potential sale in the New Zealand Recreation Association (NZRA) e-newsletter, NZRA Chief Executive Andrew Leslie suggested that that potential sale "will be sure to raise voices on both sides of the argument."

Leslie continued "are open spaces sacrosanct and need(ing) to be protected in perpetuity? Or is it a sound management decision to offset development costs through the sale of under utilised spaces in an environment where Councils across the country are under heavy fiscal pressure?

"It will be interesting to see how this one plays out."