Puketāpapa Local Board members Jon Turner and Bobby Shen share the disappointment of the community that the Monte Cecilia Park off-leash dog area was formally removed by the Communities and Residents team (C&R’s Ella Kumar, Fiona Lai, Roseanne Hay, and Mark Pervan) at the local board meeting on 17 April.
Here member Jon Turner provides the background to C&R’s decision and City Vision’s fight on behalf of the community to address any issues without the need to penalise responsible dog owners.
Monte Cecilia Park is one of our top ‘destination’ parks, and the off-leash area is a welcome element within the wider park. A community of dog owners and lovers has formed there, with teachers, police, academics, young mothers, and recent immigrants among the many speaking at the hearing in February of the joy and connection they feel when they gather in this area and unique topography that allows their dogs to play with each other safely.
The decision was made against the wishes of over 800 submissions directly on the proposal, as well as a 1000-signature petition. Submissions were 88% against this change, with the other 12% largely raising concerns about off-leash dogs in the rest of the park – there was very little feedback about the actual off-leash area causing issues.
This decision penalises responsible dog owners, who follow the rules, for the actions of others in the wider park area. We don’t believe removing this off-leash area will result in the rest of the park (which is on-leash) becoming less likely to have off-leash dog issues – of which there had been around 1 issue reported a month.
Your City Vision members have advocated for increased signage and more compliance to address the issues which have been raised by the community – largely, concerns around people having their dog off-leash in the rest of the park, which is an on-leash area. These concerns are valid and hearing of people who had been attacked in these areas was concerning – yet all that removing this off-leash area does is penalise good dog owners who follow the rules.
The proposal to remove the off-leash area was first put in place at the meeting on 5 December, against the advice of Auckland Council staff. The C&R Chair, Ella Kumar put forward a motion to remove the off-leash area, stating that “the complaints from members of the community about off-leash dogs at Monte Cecilia Park is sufficient evidence that the decision to change the dog access rules in 2015 has created a significant risk to people.” These complaints weren’t tabled at the meeting. Your City Vision members moved amendments which supported keeping Monte Cecilia as an off-leash park and made a proposal to improve the signage in the park. As staff advised, we could have implemented unobtrusive bollards marking out the off-leash area, put in place more compliance and taken up the desire from the dog owner community to do some more peer education to fellow dog owners about the on and off-leash areas.
This suggestion was supported by staff, yet the amendment was voted down, 4-2. We then voted against the motion, again losing 4-2, and noted our dissenting votes.
Over the last few months the board has had a large number of emails come through from the community, and were presented with a petition by the public of a thousand signatures at the Hearing Panel in February. We also had very good presentations at the hearings panel, largely in favour of keeping the off-leash area, with one submission wanting to remove the off-leash area due to the poor behaviour of dog owners in the rest of the park. At this point in time members are supposed to be only listening to the views of the public and keeping an open mind, showing no pre-determination, yet the Chair Ella Kumar took it upon herself to argue with members of the public who had given up their time to come and present to us.
At the 17 April Local board meeting we once again put forward amendments to improve the signage, increase compliance, and keep the off-leash bowl area of Monte Cecilia Park as an off-leash area. Elected members are supposed to take a number of things in mind when making changes to a dog access rule, including considering whether there are practicable alternative solutions to address the conflict between uses of the place, and to ensure that displaced dog owners have access to other places. The animal management team hadn’t been prioritising this park as somewhere to visit due to the lack of complaints, but following this process had been visiting more often. At no point in the discussion did the C&R members consider that increasing signage and compliance would be a potential alternative solution.
Our thanks and apologies go out to the members of the community who took their time to write submissions, present to the board, gather signatures and be involved in what has been the most substantial level of feedback we have seen over the last six years. It is a shame that this feedback has largely been ignored. People spoke of the park as a safe space for women due to the wide sight lines, of easy access for those with limited mobility, and a great place to spend time with family.
The chair, Ella Kumar, when moving the resolution to remove the off-leash area, said “Families don’t go there (to the park), senior citizens don’t go there, people don’t have picnics”. That doesn’t match up with our experience at the park at all. We empathise with people who have had negative experiences with dogs off-leash in the on-leash area of the park, and had hoped that our resolution to improve compliance would address this. Instead, C&R have unnecessarily taken a sledgehammer to a nail and destroyed a community.
Jon Turner
City Vision member of the Puketāpapa Local Board