Our collective Taonga: Parks plan

A plan for the future of Auckland's green spaces

Contents | Introduction | What are the challenges? | How do we want to develop our parks network? | Action plan | Monitoring and review | Glossary of terms

Introduction

This document is a plan for the future of Auckland's parks. It brings together how we want to develop and manage Auckland's parks and green spaces over the next 10 years and sets out the steps to get us there.

It is to be read in conjunction with 'Places for people, places for nature', the council's overarching framework for the future protection and improvement of Auckland's open space. 'Places for people, places for nature' provides the strategic context and direction for this plan. It establishes the open space contribution to the vision of Auckland as 'The First City of the Pacific'.

Figure 1 illustrates the relationship between the council vision for Auckland and this plan for the future of Auckland's parks. The diagram also shows the other open space action plans the council is developing.

Figure 1: The open space framework and the six supporting action plans (54k PDF)

To view PDFs download Acrobat Reader from the Adobe website. Further help on how to view PDFs.

1.1 What the parks plan covers

Whilst the plan primarily relates to the parks and green spaces of the isthmus which are owned and managed by Auckland City, and does not directly apply to land managed by other agencies, councils or private land, it does seek to lead by example and influence land managers, developers and decision makers, at both a local and regional level.

We have given priority to the following areas of green space, which are publicly accessible and managed by Auckland City. These include:

• parks and gardens
• outdoor active recreation areas, including sports fields
• natural and semi-natural areas
• amenity green spaces along transport and utility corridors, including railway and motorway corridors.

The plan establishes the different roles that Auckland City can take in the future development of the city's parks and green spaces. These range from landowner; to regulator, educator or influencer of the private green space and as partner and advocate with other agencies and groups.

1.2 How the parks plan works

The parks plan sets out a series of priorities and actions, which will guide how the council protects and improves the quality of the city's parks over the next 10 years and in turn deliver the contribution of parks to the council's vision for the Auckland.

There are three key sections:

Challenges:

based on an understanding of existing park provision and use, this section provides an outline of the issues and opportunities for the development of Auckland's park network.

Objectives:

in response to the challenges, the strategic context and council's aspirations for the development of the city's parks in the future, objectives have which set out what we want to achieve over the next 10 years.

Actions:

a series of actions have been established, which set out how we intend to deliver our objectives. We have prioritised the actions to enable us to achieve our objectives in such a way that will make the most difference. Actions are based on work currently underway, and what is to be achieved in the next 1-3 years and within 5 years. We will monitor progress over the next 5 years and review the plan at the end of that time.

An evaluation framework to measure performance indicators will also be developed. There will be regular reporting to the city's residents on achievements and progress.

Published February 2008