Take back the golf courses!

By
Martyn Bradbury
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32
21

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Goff makes a point that many of us have been making some time as we grapple with affordable housing in Auckland – take back the Golf Courses!

Golf Courses – apart from being a grotesquely elite old boys network – waste huge amounts of real estate and water. Most of these Golf Courses are heavily subsidised by Local Government so why should they remain for the elites when those elites won’t even let us move into their suburbs?

It is immoral to subside these elite spaces while 206 000 Auckland’s live in over crowded conditions.

Shamubeel Eaqub has already identified Golf courses as space to take for social housing, perhaps his suggestion requires a focused protest?

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32 COMMENTS

  1. You are being played by the government and developers.

    Instead of working out how to take away green spaces in the city – perhaps look at why the government is selling state houses in Auckland, why there is no public rail in Auckland, why chinese youth with $200k gifts can afford to buy up property in Auckland when local youth’s can’t.

    Making everything worse in Auckland with cutting down ancient trees, putting up shoebox apartments, putting in Bunnings, stealing harbour, prosecuting people for having a yurt on their lifestyle block, putting up mega mansions that block out others while pretending it is all for the poor (uhhh, more like against the poor), giant fences, giant statues, leaky buildings, apartments that rout out the poor with body corp levies, etc etc.

    First they will take the golf courses, but next they will take the parks, the schools and so forth…

    Be careful with what the so called left are advocating.

    You can be angry but show the anger where it should be, poor wages, unfettered immigration, no jobs, more insecure jobs, less public spaces, high power, water, insurance, zero public transport, pathetic urban planning where a high rise can build 2 cm from another blocking out their views etc Albany the cultural wasteland, turning Westfield into another etc etc

    And people like Shamubeel Eaqub, love to advocate all this, just as Bernard Hickey told everyone there would be a property crash for the last 20 years so that a lot of young people (and divorced people) did not buy a house thinking their would be a crash. Now they can’t afford to.

    Shamubeel Eaqub, works for Goldman Sacs. He advocates renting forever as owning property does not make sense economically. Bet his employers love him. As an asian leader he does not think immigration is contributing to the problem of housing affordability.

    • Shamubeel Eaqub / LinkedIn

      (I wasn’t aware of this part of Shamubeel Eaqub’s background.

      https://www.linkedin.com/in/eaqub/background/

      Economist & Analyst, Director

      Company Name Goldman Sachs JBWere

      Company IndustryInvestment Banking Company Size10,001+ empl
      Dates EmployedJan 2006 – Mar 2009 Employment Duration3 yrs 2 mos

      Description
      Responsible for analysing and forecasting all NZ macroeconomic metrics for equity analysts and fund managers

      Responsible for equity analysis of the listed property sector with six stocks under coverage

      Write reports communicating forecasts and recent news flow releases to clients and media

      Presentations to internal and external clients customised to their needs

      Penny Bright
      2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.

  2. Yes Martyn, I am keen on getting involved in organised protests for this and other things such as free tertiary education, ensuring that housing intensification goes ahead, inequality divide is closed etc.

    Such movements (building on the back of the tppa matches) could help build a youth movement against the govt

    Let’s do it bro!

  3. I recall scenes in the 1972 (?) movie, SOYLENT GREEN, when people lived in derelict cars, clogging up streets. That’s over-population for you, and a reminder that our little planet has finite room and finite resources.

    I don’t know what the answer is, but maybe other cities should be encouraged to taken on extra people rather than Auckland.

    • there are 20000 active golfers in Auckland and 33 golf courses there subsidized by the rate payer but same argument could be applied to race courses there is also the issue of land banking by the elite the Keith hay group in mt roskill comes to mind we cant just attack golf courses a land use policy will need to be developed and applied without bias to public and private land equally . i liked what Colin Craig said use it or loose it ,unimproved land could also attract hefty rates those elites should pay a price for there privileged positions remurea golf course should be the first target for protest action count me in john keys a member there i understand they only have 1500 members using half billion dollars worth of land and paying pepper corn rates Bernard hickey explains the rip off in this article
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11549347

  5. Martyn raises a very good point here, Auckland is full of spaces that are wasted, really, wasted!

    Look at all these shopping malls, where more than half the ground is covered by endless car parking spaces, look at the golf courses, where a few that love that green grass to hit a few balls around get their luxury space to live in, which is a questionable use of grounds. In Japan they have golf ranges on top of high rise buildings or in narrower spaces, they just make more use of it.

    I am rather astonished how we get confronted with the arguments of residential intensification, when we do as a large city only need to make moderate compromises and adjustments, we do not need high rise buildings over 5 or 7 storeys, that is not needed at all in most places. If we only allow the Mixed Housing Suburban and Mixed Housing Urban areas to intensify a little, we will have ample residential housing capacity, PLUS if we dare discourage car use, and parking, we would have massive spaces to build up, to say three or four storeys, not upsetting or blocking views of people.

    Get rid of the golf courses, the too large parking areas, set the rules and system to force people to switch to public transport, and leave the car at home, or better at the car sales yard, and we will get there, with little sweat and tears.

    But no, the planners of Council and some submitters want both, high rises in unsuitable places, plus still much enabled parking, motorways and what you have, as they dare not challenge the wasteful, out of date “Kiwi lifestyle” of driving everywhere, no matter what, to the corner dairy, the school, the job or whatever.

    It is time people wake up, smell the coffee, and get the best of both worlds, more space, more use of it, with good environment and building design, and by avoiding the stupid mistakes made overseas, of building up too high, thus creating ghettos that few want to live in. It could all be so easy, would people be a little bit smarter and adjust.

    And we would probably even avoid the senseless battles with so called “nimbys”, who may finally see the light and benefits.

  6. I would be wary of moves to swallow up open green spaces near the city central, god forbid Cornwall park should ever go. But golf courses are very exclusive and while maybe some houses could be built there, green spaces are vital for collective sanity.
    I would suggest though that some sort of movement be started to make sure the city fathers protect the good horticulture land in the old franklin area. Neo liberalism will see that chewed up and spat out by developers if something is not done to make sure it isn’t

    • The “good old horticultural” land in Franklin, is not going to be protected while the “good old boys network” still exists.

      The planning recommendation by Richard Gard’nr (Regulatory Planning Coordinator Landuse) for the Craddock intensive egg-production consent, shows how process is owned in certain areas by local connections.

  7. Goff doesn’t mention that the Remuera Golf Club have a lease that will be going on for some decades yet, so his posturing is meaningless. If people are so affronted by having that space as a golf course for a few, why not turn it into a public park for all to enjoy – Why build on it? – once it’s gone, it’s gone – Auckland need to preserve large areas of green open land with trees – people in apartments say that they want larger apartments with parking for two cars (which Penny Hulse is desperate to outlaw) and a large park very close by that they can go to, to stop the feeling of claustrophobia, which can easily happen being closed into a small space for long periods of time. Most people who live in apartments are either younger people who are out all day working, or older people who are either away alot or have the apartment as an occasional place to stay while in the city. To expect people to live in a small apartment and stay in there all day, every day, with no open spaces to go to nearby is asking for trouble – and what about those who lived there before having children, who now HAVE children, but can’t afford a standalone house yet ? Where do their children go to play and burn off energy? Open spaces are vital for Auckland, for filtering the air, for people to walk through, and for children. How would New Yorkers get on without Central Park?

  8. Goff wants the sale of the Auckland Council-owned land to be discussed. Isn’t that privatisation?
    The market has failed to create enough housing. The Auckland City Council should start building and owning the solution.

  9. I knew plenty of workers who played golf at Western Springs. I suspect that Goff, true to form, is seeking to help developers. As usual, this is done by handing over the commons. What a shame we won’t have a real left winger standing for mayor.

  10. Come on Martyn

    Remuera Golf Course cannot be built on unless the government passes an act invalidating the lease and terms of the trust. I note you forgot to mention that Goff didn’t mention the golf course in his own electorate?

  11. A golf course may be a ‘green space’ but it is one you can not enter and enjoy ……………. unless you are playing golf.

    If they converted 14 of the 18 holes into housing and converted the rest into reserves and parks then Auckland would have more public ‘green space’.

    At the moment it’s a ‘green space’ for john Key and his ilk and no-one else……..

  12. No aspect of our predicament is in any way improved by having more people -professor Albert Bartlett.

    When the globalised financial-economic system collapses over 2016 to 2020 Auckland will quickly lose its appeal and there will be plenty of empty houses. And not much food.

    Anyone with a brain would have, for decades, been advocating severe restriction of breeding and immigration and covering golf courses with fruit trees and permaculture gardens.

    However, we have already seen that governments and councils are almost completely brainless and acting as saboteurs, as are the people who vote them into power.

    ‘Interesting’ times.

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