Renew your PWCRA membership now!  Accepting new members for 2024 - 2025

Focus of the year 2024-2025

- Council's Ti Point to Sandspit Shoreline Adaption Plan 
- purchasing the security camera
- keeping our village safe
- Neighbourhood Support & Community Resilience
- getting the best value out of our rates

Annual Subscription 1 June 2024 - 31 May 2025

Payment: $30 per household (all donations gratefully received)

Your membership to the Point Wells Community & Ratepayers Association:

- gives you discounted hall hire rates
- funds the publication of our quarterly community magazine, the Point Wells Crier 
- provides funding for the management and cleaning of our community hall & library for everyone to use
- funds internet access at the library & hall
- supports our local clubs such as Connoisseurs Club, Garden Club, Trapping Club and Play Group
- funds our website - pointwellsvillage.co.nz

The Committee are the primary advocates for Point Wells ratepayers on issues with Auckland Council, Rodney District Board and Auckland Transport

From the Point Wells Committee

Kia ora koutou, Greetings to you all. 

It feels like it has been a very wet and windy winter. We've had our fair share of thunderstorms, but thankfully fewer power outages compared to last year. The Point Wells Ratepayers and Community Association has stayed active, weathering the challenges to focus on local matters. Local board representation has been a key issue for communities in the Mahurangi region, as Auckland Council is set to change the number of representatives for the Warkworth area. We're proud to have made our voices heard, with our submission to Auckland Councillors and a verbal presentation by our secretary at the Town Hall. This process has also given us a wonderful opportunity to strengthen ties with our neighboring communities in Omaha, Matakana, and Whangateau.

We continue to work towards ensuring the Council addresses the necessary repairs to our seawall and develops a solid plan for Riverside Drive and other areas affected by shoreline erosion. A community meeting will be held soon to discuss these plans.

With summer on the horizon, we are excited to celebrate Halloween and other upcoming community events as the warm weather returns!

Nga mihi, 

PWRCA 

Representation Review – Rodney Local Board.

(Article in the latest Crier Spring 2024)

Auckland Council is currently undertaking the ‘representation review’ to consider how well we are all represented across our 21 local boards. This review is required by law must happen every six years. But this year, the Council’s review is happening alongside a look into how local boards are structured as well.   

The representation review looks at:  

• how many councillors and local board members we have
• how they are elected 
• ward and board boundaries, names and the number of representatives in each area

The local board reorganisation will look at: 

• the optimal number of local boards, particularly given Auckland's growth since 2010 when the council was set up 
• the range and scope of their decision-making 
• how local boards can be funded to get more done for their communities

A proposal to change the boundaries of subdivision was proposed by the Northern Action Group to contract the current Warkworth and Kumeu board subdivision boundaries to the townships and their surrounding area and replace Wellsford with one large rural subdivision taking in South Head, Kaukapakapa, Puhoi, Kaipara Flats, Wellsford, Pakiri and even Kawau Island. Rodney’s fourth subdivision, Dairy Flat, would stay much as it is. NAG believes these new boundaries would allow elected members to represent voters’ priorities and interests more fairly, and create communities of common interest, rather than communities of place. The Point Wells Ratepayers and Community Association held a meeting with Council representatives at a late stage in the consultation process, having come in late to the process. There was little awareness of the proposal, and the meeting helped clarify why this review was needed, and what the impacts would be to our local representation. Omaha, Matakana, Whangateau and Warkworth representatives attended and there was immediate opposition to NAGs proposal. Point Wells put forward a written submission on behalf of our association members. Alan McClintock then attended the Hearings and gave a verbal submission and answered questions by Auckland City Councillors. 

The reason for our opposition to the changes are 

• The Council has used 2018 census data to justify that Warkworth is not growing at same rate as other parts of Rodney and can therefore give up a representative. This data is now inaccurate and doesn’t align to the Council’s official population growth predictions.
• While we agree that other areas might be getting larger and require more representation, this doesn’t mean we should have to reduce ours.
• Point Wells belongs to the eastern coastal group of communities that has specific concerns with sea level rise, coastal erosion and protection of community assets that more inland communities do not have. We don’t believe a Wellsford based representative will advocate for us and our issues.
• The Warkworth subdivision produces significantly more rates than other parts of Rodney and where possible this should be invested back into our community and interests, not spread across a huge new northern area.

At a recent meeting, the Rodney Local Board voted to support the proposal with some amendments. This means it is very likely to go ahead, despite the strong opposition from our area. It will be very important to ensure that our local concerns are well understood by the next local board members and are a significant pollical issue in the next election 2025. 

Watch Alan talk on behalf of Point Wells here : Hearings videos | How we represent you: Auckland Council representation review | AK Have Your Say

Representation Review Hearings Session – 3rd September 2024

September 04, 2024

How the PWCRA is advocating for our members

 Direct questions to the Local Board: December 2023

Our committee has formally requested an update from the Rodney Local Board on the below topics. Here is Ivan’s Wagstaff’s reply on behalf of the board.

What is happening with our seawall upgrade? We logged an OIA last year as we felt we were not given adequate information about why the seawall renewal had been postponed. We are keen to have an official update on when the seawall repair and upgrade will be started and completed.

Response: The Point Wells seawall project is on the regionally funded Coastal Asset Renewals Work Programme. Last year, the project was placed on hold anticipating the upcoming development of a Shoreline Adaptation Plan for the site and wider Whangateau area. In developing the future coastal renewals work programme, the project will be re-initiated for the beginning of the new financial year to enable supporting design engineers to be engaged and commence work on this project. Once the FY24-27 regional work programme is approved, the project team will be able to re-engage with the Rodney Local Board on the project scope and next steps.

We see the footpath has been extended on Point Wells Road, is this part of our Traffic Calming funding? How do we find out if the $100K allocated for this has been spent yet?

Response: The project was completed in Dec 2023.The following improvements were completed:   Road marking, Signage improvements, and Electronic Driver feedback sign. All works were completed at 57k. 

We want to get the process underway to provide a public toilet in the Point Wells

Playground reserve. People are using the back of hall for toileting which is a health hazard. The only other public toilet is some distance away at the boat ramp. Recently our Hall Co-ordinator spoke to two Council staff at Point Wells Hall who informed us they were there to plan future upgrades to the facility. They were unaware that our Association has a Community Centre Management Agreement with the Council. They were looking at extending a driveway around the back of the hall; we think the public toilet is the priority.

Response: This might be more immediately possible if the community can help raise funds.

Jobs logged with the Council:

We have requested the Council repair the wooden edging along the boat ramp wall which is unstable. We have also requested they remove the large harbour channel marker lying on the grass by the ramp. Job logged Feb 8^th 2024.

This work has been completed.

PWCRA Committee

Do you have a question for the local board? Get in touch with the PWCRA association SECRETARY

pointwellscra@gmail.com