KEY POINTS:
Aucklanders are facing again, with the $25 million upgrade of Aotea Square, the determination of a group of planners within the city council to remake our public spaces, at massive cost, according to an aesthetic and ideological agenda that most citizens don't share.
For that $25 million, ratepayers will get a large, empty expanse of granite and concrete where currently on the paved area there are graceful trees shading seats and colourful planter boxes of flowers. All those despised exotic trees and flowers will be gone.
Anyone sitting on one of the benches will do so unsheltered from the sun, surrounded by nothing but paving.
Once the carpark is reconstructed, there will be some planting, but solely of native trees, on and behind the three grass terraces.
Despite letters to the Herald running 50 to one against a solely native planting scheme in Queen St over the summer of 2005-06, the planners are clearly still working towards their vision to implement a native planting theme in much of Queen St and replace exotics with natives over 10 to 20 years.
The issue is not the relative virtue of native or exotic trees in general, but rather what species are most suited, in form and function, to urban streets and parks.
Foiled by public outcry from executing that dismal cabbage-tree gully plan, they had to accept a compromise, where leafy liquidambar and handsome nikau co-exist. This should now be enhanced by planting brightly flowering species in the concrete median strips, replacing the current drab, spiky grasses.
Why should there not also be a compromise in Aotea Square, reflecting the diversity of our population and its tastes? Why should puriri and karaka not co-exist with camellia and magnolia, for example, as they do in Aucklanders' gardens?
After the Queen St cabbage-tree debacle, Simon Upton, former Minister of Conservation, Minister for the Environment, and current world authority in sustainable development, deplored, in his Upton-on-Line for January 2006, a zealous generation of arboricultural fundamentalists [who] seem determined that native trees must trump exotics whatever the setting.
He observes an agenda rooted in some muddled ideas about national identity [that] was about to inflict token indigeneity on the citizens. He assures his readers that there is no risk that native plants will disappear from view, and observes that cities are decidedly artificial, exotic creations, and planting should bear some relationship to the way people live in them.
The current plan is deficient in that regard. The council advised that in Aotea Square, the city's most significant civic open space, the design team will be required to give serious consideration to the ways in which all ages may engage with and enjoy the square.
Priority has been given to enabling 20,000 people to jump up and down at a rock concert, or a multitude to gather for a demonstration. The paved area is to be left empty to be ever-ready for such purposes.
How about the enjoyment of those people, including hard-pressed ratepayers, who would love to spend a little time sitting in a square, with dappled shade and the beauty of flowers to cheer and inspire?
Such a place is Bryant Park in mid-town Manhattan, an oasis of lawn, deciduous trees, cafés, paved areas, flowers and seating.
A sympathetically planned Aotea Square could similarly act as a magnet for people, something a sterile expanse of granite is unlikely to do.
Such a development would better respect the built heritage, the most striking element of which is the beautiful Italian Renaissance-style town hall.
The planners repeat they want people to know they're in Auckland. I think locals will know that. And I don't see the merit of visitors remembering Auckland as that city with the colourless heart. And there are the tui, say planners. Yes, tui love the kowhai flowers that bloom for about three weeks out of 52. But tui also love the winter-flowering exotics in Auckland gardens. Kowhai have neither the architectural form nor canopy to come anywhere near rivalling a well-formed plane tree in city sites.
A beautiful array of plane trees lines Greys Ave. A visual link with this avenue is considered important, yet there will be no plane trees in the square. There will be kauri, totara and pohutukawa, magnificent in forest or coastal settings respectively, but seen by many as simply misplaced in this city square.
Arboricultural fundamentalism has its limits, though. The grass seed for the grass terraces is probably of British origins. How did this slip past the Puritans? Best to keep quiet, or we'll end up with tussock terraces!
* Lesley Max is a children's advocate who led the fight to save trees in Queen St.
