{"id":592223,"date":"2026-09-06T19:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/592223\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T19:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:44:09","slug":"auckland-transport-replaces-8000-rock-garden-with-26000-landscaped-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/592223\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland Transport replaces $8000 rock garden with $26000 landscaped garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">Puket\u0101papa Local Board member Brendan Larmer said he walked through the area after constituents raised concerns and felt it didn\u2019t look safe.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The rock garden's been described as &quot;ugly as&quot; and a &quot;whimsical design gone wrong&quot;. Photo \/ Brendan Larmer\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The rock garden&#8217;s been described as &#8220;ugly as&#8221; and a &#8220;whimsical design gone wrong&#8221;. Photo \/ Brendan Larmer<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI understand someone on a scooter had a nasty and unfortunate near incident after tripping on the rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">The rocks were installed as part of a wider upgrade to the area, roundabout with two raised zebra crossings and a signalised mid-block pedestrian crossing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">AT said it identified the rocks were not installed in accordance with the original design specifications.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cOur observations confirmed that they were effectively achieving our safety objective, so we elected to continue monitoring the site following construction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Some of the rocks became dislodged. Photo \/ Brendan Larmer\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Some of the rocks became dislodged. Photo \/ Brendan Larmer<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">The agency said the decision to replace the rock garden with a landscaped garden with low-growing plants came after a number of ongoing safety and maintenance issues emerged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">It said it would \u201cprovide a more sustainable and visually appealing outcome while continuing to support the intended pedestrian movements through the area\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">Larmer said he didn\u2019t want to throw anyone under the bus but he\u2019s glad the rock garden had been removed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019m happy it\u2019s landed in a good spot and we\u2019ve listened to the community and got a good outcome. In our area, there\u2019s a lot of flooding so having vegetation to mop it up is not a bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"PLRONTue\" style=\"display:none\">Jacob Jones is a Newstalk ZB reporter working out of the Auckland newsroom. He has an interest in council and local government issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Puket\u0101papa Local Board member Brendan Larmer said he walked through the area after constituents raised concerns and felt&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[86271,163102,1443,74,103394,51,138,10709,38403,8589,291771,13457,111,139,69,149450,30509,1629,6302,1361,112,102],"class_list":["post-592223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-86271","tag-163102","tag-about","tag-after","tag-apart","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-concerns","tag-falling","tag-garden","tag-landscaped","tag-look","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-replaces","tag-replacing","tag-rock","tag-safety","tag-that","tag-transport","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}