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Nearly $60 million has been spent in an expansive phase for the Auckland regional parks network, and a falling property market means the ARC cheque book will be kept handy.
The regional council is racing against time to preserve open green space for public use before it is developer bait, said ARC parks chairman Sandra Coney.
"The council is aware that if there ever was a time to buy, it's now," she said.
"We can't leave any greater legacy for future generations than more parks. A variety of landscapes and beaches is protected from being gobbled up by insane development."
Ms Coney said buying park land - mostly with loans on 50-year terms - was fully backed by the council and its chairman Mike Lee, and also won high public approval.
"Parks surveys show it's the one thing people don't seem to have a problem with spending rates on ... they enjoy them and see the result of their rates."
Between 1998 and mid-2005, the council spent $27.7 million on increasing the size of the popular Wenderholm and Long Bay parks and taking the network beyond 16 parks.
It secured the idyllic Scandrett property near Warkworth, opened in 2004, and stitched up a deal on Waitawa, a rural-industrial property in Auckland's southeast, which will scrub up to be the Cinderella of the parks network.
Park buying has been enabled by a $10 million windfall from the former Auckland Regional Services Trust and a special rate to build up an acquisitions war chest, which brings in about $5 million a year.
Since mid-2005, a further $32.8 million has been spent, including $19.25 million at Pakiri, in the region's northeast, to buy land from boxer David Tua and a property developer.
Last year, the ARC strengthened security of public access to the pristine Pakiri coastline by adding a 50ha headland to the Rodney District Council's beachfront Te Arai reserve.
A milestone was acquiring the first regional park on the shores of Kaipara Harbour, which Ms Coney felt Auckland had turned its back on.
The South Head property, called Te Rau Puriri, will give a coast-to-coast walkway through tranquil dune lakes and shady wooded glades.
Public access to the eastern side of the Kaipara Harbour was assured by the gift of a whole farm by Pierre and Jackie Chatelanat.
