KEY POINTS:
Almost 1400ha of land has been added to the Auckland Regional Council's parks network in the past three years for about $24 million, but chairman Mike Lee wants to keep the ball rolling for present and future generations.
"If we want to get serious about protecting our outstanding natural landscapes we have to get serious and buy them," he told the Herald, in response to his council's failed legal bid to demolish a partly built house beside a bush walkway between Bethells Beach and Muriwai.
Mr Lee said the council was still considering its legal options over the High Court's rebuff, and he denied any malice in responding to complaints from the public "who were appalled" to find the house being built beside the Te Henga-Goldie Bush Walkway.
"However, the lesson is this, that the Resource Management Act in the long run can't protect our outstanding natural landscapes."
That meant "a serious reprioritisation of ARC spending" to buy surrounding land to safeguard it for Aucklanders.
"You will see, I hope, an acceleration in acquisition of parkland, particularly coastland while there's still some left," he said.
"We're in a race against time to protect Auckland's coastal land for present and future generations of Aucklanders - we have no national parks in Auckland, so what we have to do is build up our regional parks network and breathe life into the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park."
Mr Lee said he had been working with Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive and fellow regional councillor Michael Barnett on ideas to promote the marine park, which he regarded as a natural asset of great potential to draw international tourists to Auckland and keep them there.
"But there is no park board, it doesn't even have a sign up, so we'd like to get in there and work alongside the Department of Conservation running up to the [2011] Rugby World Cup and really promote this absolutely superb asset in the Hauraki Gulf and its islands on the world market."
Mr Lee said the $24 million spent on three regional parks in addition to the 843ha Atiu Creek Farm gifted to the public in 2005 by Pierre and Jackie Chatelanat on Kaipara Harbour west of Wellsford did not count about $25 million paid by the council for open space on the Tank Farm in Auckland.
He defended 50-year loans raised to help to pay for new parks, against criticism from Citizens and Ratepayers councillor David Hay, saying they were justified on grounds of "intergenerational equity".
Mr Hay says the loans will add millions of dollars in interest payments to bank profits.
The latest acquisitions push the area of land covered by the regional council's portfolio of 25 parks to above 38,000 ha.
