Editorial: Gift an act of supreme generosity

Seldom do we have the chance to report an act of such heart-warming generosity as appeared in the Herald yesterday. The gift to Auckland of a 843ha farm on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour is a gesture that could hardly be bettered. The farm will become another of the regional parks that Aucklanders have come to appreciate so much.

The benefactors, Pierre and Jackie Chatelanat, have handed their farm to the Auckland Regional Council with a minimum of fuss, declining even to be interviewed. Mr Chatelanat, born in Switzerland, has owned the property since he came here in the early 1950s.

It was a wasteland of manuka and gorse when he acquired it from the Government. It has been a lifetime's work, and the farm is now valued at $10 million. But the Chatelanats, who have no children, are asking nothing.

They are content that the land will be preserved from further development for all time and they will be able to continue their retirement in a house they have built on a secluded part of the estate.

What a pleasant story this makes from the usual poker game that takes place when a coastal property owner believes a local body might be interested in acquiring it.

Spenders of public money are thought to be a soft touch for an over-priced sale, particularly if public enthusiasm can be aroused for the acquisition. Councils usually have to be patient, endure some short-sighted criticism from disappointed citizens and wait until the asking price becomes more realistic.

At that point they must run the risk of being outbid for the land, and if its value is higher in permitted uses other than parkland, so be it.

The region is already well endowed with large farm-parks on its eastern coastal promontories, and they have become well-used for tramping, camping, day visits and summer holidays.

A similar park on the Kaipara coast will have attractions of its own. The ARC has been looking for a park on that harbour for quite some time. It will now take over the Chatelanat farm and envisages that it will be ready to be opened to the public in 2011.

Why so long, we might ask. Need it take six years to improve access, provide some vehicle parking and build the minimal facilities required?

The appeal of these parks is that they are left as farmland, grazed by stock. They are places where city people can escape the noise and crowds and find the silence of the country.

Walk over the paddocks of Shakespear reserve at the tip of Whangaparaoa or Tawharanui on the Tokatu Peninsula and you have almost to yourself sublime views, hidden bays, the sea rolling all around you and that almost audible silence that a city never permits.

The Chatelanat property, Atiu Creek Farm, will offer all of that. No doubt it will acquire a grander name as a regional park, and no doubt the Chatelanats are not eager to be personally memorialised there.

But gestures such as theirs deserve to be marked in some way. It has been compared to Sir John Logan Campbell's gift to Auckland of Cornwall Park, and that is not overstating it. Cornwall Park at that time was a farm outside the town with breathtaking views in every direction.

The town has grown to a sprawling city, and the splendid parks run by the ARC outside the urban limits are its valuable breathing spaces. The Kaipara gift is an example to other citizens who have land, especially coastal land, they could afford to let everyone enjoy. Pierre and Jackie Chatelanat should be left in no doubt that to them a city will be forever grateful.