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Matakana Community Group (MCG) is making a bid to make its collective voice heard more widely and clearly on planning, infrastructure and traffic issues facing the area.
A group of MCG members and professionals has put together a strategic action plan aimed at increasing local government awareness of local concerns, developing a future vision and development plan, and enabling the group to do more itself.
Project coordinator Paul Roberts says Matakana’s population has increased by 50 per cent since 2013 and traffic has increased by up to 80 per cent, but local government plans have nothing of specific relevance to the village and its surroundings.
“There’s not much that’s ‘local’ for Matakana in the current local authority plan refresh – nothing about the town centre, amenities or transport development plans,” he says. “So there is a strategic void to fill, an influence gap to address and perhaps a chance to seek more devolved responsibilities to get things done.”
A previous Sustainable Development Plan (SDP) drawn up by the community and the former Rodney District Council in 2006 has largely disappeared since the formation of the Supercity, the group found.
“Sadly, apart from some amended land use provisions now in the Auckland Council Unitary Plan, very little of those aspirations, such as a streetscape and infrastructure improvement programme with pedestrian friendly spaces, cycle and walkways (including a Green Network Plan), have been followed through under the Auckland Council,” Mr Roberts says in an overview of the new plan.
The group believes MCG needs to do three things:
• boost its membership, funding and communication channels to increase awareness of challenges facing the area
• develop a Future Matakana Vision & Strategy by 2019, including an Urban Design and Town Centre Plan, to feed into local government planning strategy
• try to devolve responsibilities from Council to the MCG so it can continue to use its own initiative and drive to get things done itself.
“Matakana has become much more than the area covered by the old SDP,” Mr Roberts says. “The future of Matakana is much more than about the people who engage with the MCG or who are residents in the Matakana urban area. The village is an important social, cultural and economic hub for the greater Matakana area, and for the Auckland region.”
