Green Spaces in our community

Papamoa Residents & Ratepayers Association

As 2023 starts to pick up speed with many challenges ahead for New Zealanders I noticed a very relevant article in today’s Bay of Plenty Times that Priority One and our four Commissioners who 'run' Tauranga city should read carefully and contemplate with an eye to the future of the last open green space in downtown Tauranga before any final decisions they should make on Tauranga Domain are considered. See www.handsofftaurangadomain.org... for the BOP Times article.

The statement in the article by the late evolutionary biologist,Stephen Jay Gould, remains as appropriate today as it was 20 years ago when he died.His statement deserves thoughtful reading and contemplation.
The leaders of Hamilton city(their city council) have got it right ensuring that 80% of households have access to a park or green space within 500 metres of their their home.

And even more important in this thought provoking article is the way a park's 'green space' is described......'unsealed urban land with some form of vegetation cover dominated by introduced vegetation such as grass'.Just the way the Tauranga Domain currently is.
The Tauranga Domain offers the last downtown large, open green space with an abundant number of trees where birdsong is heard by the park user rather than the noise of traffic. And is a central place for people to meet socially, play sport and be active.
What is proposed by Priority One and soon to be voted upon by the four Commissioners of this city is a stadium enclosed on 3 sides for a few minor rugby matches each year, without the well used athletic track and bowls and croquet clubs with their lawns ripped out for a concrete carpark. Further neither the bowls or croquet clubs have a clue where they might be relocated to. What sort of planning is that !?