Auckland mayoral candidate John Palino today confirmed that he will not sell any Council park land for housing and called on other mayoral candidates to make the same commitment.
This was in response to the announcement last night at a local resident’s meeting that council officials want to sell Liston Park in Ellerslie.
Mr Palino said, “The Auckland Council has mismanaged its way into such a financial hole that it is in danger of breaching its debt limits. Its financial mismanagement combined with its ideological obsession with the “Compact City” means that our residents face having their local parks sold.”
The Council could fix its financial problems by improving internal efficiency, applying a sinking lid on staff numbers and creating a culture that does not accept massive blowouts on IT projects and buildings.
“The ridiculous, ideological obsession of a Compact City means we will lose more of our park land if the Council does not change direction” Mr Palino said.
“We must fix the Council’s finance and remove the artificial restriction on land supply to solve the problems with housing affordability. We should develop new areas close to transport spines, with plenty of public space like parks, rather than building houses on our existing parks.
Selling Auckland’s parks is a terrible short term tactic to solve a long term problem. I call for all other mayoral candidates to make the same pledge,” he said.
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