Editorial: Community boards have a major role

It will be dawning on the select committee on Auckland governance that the hardest part of the Super City design work is still to be done. Replacing seven councils with one is the easy part. Once it is agreed that some number of subsidiary bodies will be needed, the hard part is deciding what they should be allowed to do.

Auckland City Council has proposed one solution to the select committee this week: leave the decision to the Super City. This is how community boards operate now; they do as much or as little as their parent councils permit them to do. Auckland City's boards appear to be kept on a tight leash. North Shore's enjoy quite a degree of autonomy. North Shore City Council told the select committee the powers of the Super City's subsidiaries will need to be secured in legislation.

The North Shore council is right. A Super City responsible for physical services to the entire Auckland region is going to seem a long way from the streets and parks and shops and libraries of everyone. It will be looking to the development of the city as a whole. It will be hard to take interest in the realignment of a bus stop, the provision of a turning lane, the furniture of a park.

For decisions of this nature residents need a representative body closer to home, which they feel they can easily approach and which shares their care for the community. It is hard to know how close to home this body needs to be. The Government has suggested Auckland needs 20 to 30 community boards, which would be broadly similar to their present size.

But the drawing of their boundaries could be a more contentious exercise under the Super City than it has been under smaller councils. The Local Government Commission could be given some flexibility to draw boundaries where communities of interest are expressed to it, rather than strive for equality of population.

They will all need to be funded from the Super City's rate collection and the law should state the basis of their allocation. It could be proportionate to population or a proportion of the rates collected from the community. But before their finances can be designed their responsibilities need to be defined.

The Government initially imagined their role would not extend much beyond control of dogs, brothels and graffiti. Community interests are somewhat wider than those. There ought to be a place for community boards in local planning and resource consents, parks management, tree protection, the development of local social and environmental amenities such as libraries, sports fields, beach or other waterfront attractions.

Not everything needs to be run by a Super City. The "one city, one plan, one rate bill" mantra can be taken too far. Auckland has districts of diverse character. Why should one plan have to fit them all? Developers may have complained that they face different planning codes in different places but so what? Their convenience is not a prime consideration.

The Super City council will be busy enough with the infrastructure and services that have to be regionally financed and co-ordinated: roads, public transport, water supply, drainage, stadiums, concert halls, museums, art galleries and major events. If it is concentrating on its intended purpose, to provide stronger and more visionary direction for the city, it will not want to be encumbered with planning and maintaining the amenities of every parish.

And if community bodies are constituted with sufficient powers and financial security there will be less need for the Super City council to be divided by ward representation. Both levels of local government will be better if their roles are clearly distinguished at the beginning.