The Welcome Bay community has its eye on transforming an underutilised and vacant park into a vibrant hub housing a skate park, adventure playground and community gardens.
For the last 12 months the Welcome Bay Community Centre has been holding public information sessions gathering feedback and ideas on how to better utilise the Tauranga City Council-owned Owens Park, on the corner of Welcome Bay Road and Arawata Avenue.
The Welcome Bay Community Centre's concept board for possible projects at Owens Park. Photo: Supplied.
Welcome Bay Community Centre manager Anna Larsen says community support for the project is incredibly strong, coupled with an underlying belief that the suburb is constantly overlooked by council.
Anna says: 'Welcome Bay tends to get left off a little bit when it comes to council expenditure. There is a lot of development that could be done in that respect that isn't being addressed.
'The community feels a little bit like it's left off the map.”
And with high hopes of submitting a project proposal to council by next February ahead of long term plan talks, the centre is hosting its second annual Owens Park Development Project public meeting this Sunday.
The community centre and council have been working alongside each other on the community's vision, but ultimately council will have to give the green light for the community-funded project.
Sunday's meeting will give the public a chance to speak to the project where major features to be included in the design will be tabled.
The announcement comes after Welcome Bay Community Centre member Paul Pou told SunLive in August that the park is a prime spot to develop an indoor centre – something he feels is drastically holding the community back.
But before any such project could proceed, the dire situation of draining where it is constantly waterlogged or boggy needs to be addressed, says Anna.
'Then we will look at the options of having a community garden and fruit trees, some sort of recreational activity on the park whether it's a playground, half court, picnic tables or all of the above,” she says.
'We have a little bit of pie in the sky thinking but that's what we think we need to do to get people really inspired.”
At this stage a community garden is leading the way for a spot in the project followed by a BMX track or skate park.
'People see that [a community garden] as a really proactive community networking process,” adds Anna.
'The idea is to start engaging with the community to see if we can get a bit more support happening for it.”
The public meeting is at Welcome Bay Community Centre this Sunday at 3pm.
7 comments
Fantastic idea
Posted on 11-12-2014 16:24 | By How about this view!
Create destination parks! BUT, reduce the cost to ratepayers for the other green spaces (Dog toilets) by re-vegetation planting and use the cost savings to build this park. I can't remember how many "parks" we have around town (Far too many) all being mowed and all of the structures (Signs, fences, gates, play equipment) checked and repaired, rubbish picked up by the gardeners etc. etc. Dead money, wasted on under-valued and under-utilised wastelands. We should have five or six exceptional family parks, that are well maintained and reduce the spend on other sites by growing bush.
Owens Park
Posted on 12-12-2014 08:57 | By surfsup
Having attended a public meeting where a number of ideas came up, as well as pointing out the facilities that the area does have are not being used, primarily due to lack of support from the council it is interesting and suprising that a skate board park is high on the agenda. The original idea was to give the local kids an area to go, so the group that hang around the shopping centre could be engaged in activities, a community garden is hardly going to achieve this, we have a BMX track in Tauranga but that will require parents to take their kids to it. Welcome Bay has Waipuna park, a tennis club local community hall Tye park for water based activities, so the question that should be asked is surely are these existing facilities being used to the max and if not why not.
Ohauiti Reserve please
Posted on 12-12-2014 09:26 | By Murray.Guy
Tauranga City Council has long been aware of the need to develop Ohauiti Reserve in the almost total absence of recreational options in the area, surely a priority over Welcome Bay which appears well endowed. A case of the squeaky, well connected, well resourced Wheel?
Ohauiti reserve
Posted on 12-12-2014 11:21 | By surfsup
Murray Guy raises a good point, however the distance from ohauiti reserve to welcome bay is 6 mins in the car.What could be looked at is upgrading the facilities at Welcome Bay and introducing new ones at ohauiti this may satisfy both areas. Unless every area wants their individual facilities in which case I would suggest this will never get off the drawing board.
Murray Guy's well connected comment
Posted on 12-12-2014 14:20 | By Councillorwatch
Perhaps Murray Guy should present some facts to prove the "squeaky, well connected, well resourced Wheel?" question he asks. Time for facts, not innuendo? The thing I sure recall is the amount of money thrown at Baypark during Murray Guys time as a councillor. I can't see how we could afford that or to spend money on this latest park idea either. We should all pay for own own sports and hobbies.
Councillorwatch's disconnected comment ..
Posted on 14-12-2014 20:04 | By Murray.Guy
The Ohauiti community has no 'official voice', no community centre, no nothing! Welcome Bay Community Centre is an extremely well run proactive organisation that is in part subsidised by the ratepayer and has as it's Chairperson a former City Councillor who retains strong links to the Mayor and staff in a variety of roles. What Baypark has to do with this matter is beyond me, especially so given my 'B Team' status as a Councillor! It's way past time Councillorwatch was either 'put down' or 'fessed up' to the motivation and agenda of their repetitive diatribe!
ohauiti focus
Posted on 15-12-2014 07:35 | By surfsup
The comments by Murray Guy re Baypark whilst not valid re this debate but at the time showed how the council had a complete disregard with spending. Having attended the initial meeting I cringed at the comments being made by the top table especially the person Murray Guy referred to as they showed no forward thinking, no drive just the same old boring approach. I live in Welcome Bay and can honestly say the facilities we have are ok but not great, our local councilor does not inspire confidence. In this situation there is no easy solution, the critics who say if you want it pay for it yourself are at best mis-guided as it is the councils responsibility to ensure all areas are treated equally.
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