Newmarket is set for a jazzy facelift

Newmarket residents and businesses are buzzing at plans to jazz up the shopping strip and make their suburb a better place to live. They now just want the Auckland City Council to make a start.

After three years of planning, the council launched "Newmarket's future framework" and a glossy brochure at the Highwic historic house this week with plans to manage the traffic flows, improve residential development, create more open space and protect volcanic views.

An earlier plan for a $95 million road above the railway line, from Khyber Pass Rd to St Marks Rd, to take traffic off Broadway has been dropped for cost reasons. Bus lanes are planned in Khyber Pass Rd and Broadway and some of the one-way streets will be turned into two-way.

Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard said the vision for Newmarket was of a bustling, dynamic area where people live, work, shop, do business and relax.

Newmarket Protection Society spokesman Owen Lockerbie said the plan was a good example of council-community co-operation, but the launch was meaningless without serious financial commitment.

City planning manager John Duthie said realistically it would take five years to implement the plan. Planning would start next year on upgrading streetscapes, but funding of $1 million to $1.5 million would not be available until the 2006-2007 year.

Mr Duthie said the council would start work next year on district plan changes, such as allowing high-density housing in the north of Newmarket, encouraging residential development in the town centre and extending the central city urban design panel to include large Newmarket residential developments.

Newmarket Business Association spokesman Peter Snelling echoed the view that it was time to get on and turn the plan into reality.

He said the association was working with the council to develop a "targeted rate" to speed up streetscape improvements. If approved, the targeted rate would raise $4 million over 10 years.

Meanwhile, the new council has signalled a review of a $25 million City-to-Newmarket busway, which would involve closing Grafton Bridge to cars and commercial vehicles to carry up to 1500 buses on weekdays. Grafton residents strongly oppose the busway.