received public consultation results on Thursday<\/a>, which informed the staff-recommended closure.<\/p>\nConsultation asked the public to choose between closures from 10pm to 6am or until 5am year-round, seasonally adjusted opening hours or unrestricted access.<\/p>\n
There were more than 190 submissions, with 187 expressing a preferred option.<\/p>\n
Of those, 74.5% supported closure, with the 10pm to 6am closure receiving the most support at 38%.<\/p>\n
Principal community assets and partnerships adviser Chris Visser said walkers from the Titirangi challenge supported a later opening time so they could participate without vehicles on the road.<\/p>\n
Some submitters asked why a closure aimed at addressing illegal dumping was proposed and whether council would consider closures at other hotspots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis proposal is a very definite proposal to deal with a specific set of issues in a specific place that is of high significance to Ng\u0101ti Oneone. So we are not proposing that this is a mechanism by which council would control and mitigate or attempt to eliminate illegal dumping across our district,\u201d Visser said.<\/p>\n
Councillor Sam Gibson objected to the recommended closure, stating that while the proposal supported mana whenua, he felt alternative options were not thoroughly explored. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a great solution, and I don\u2019t think that we consulted with our ratepayer base on really significant alternative solutions. I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ve investigated additional solutions to this issue that allow our public the freedom to enjoy such a beautiful maunga, whether they be people that don\u2019t have the ability to ride or walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Rob Telfer was concerned the closure would not fix the dumping problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just wondering, should we be punishing everybody for the few that are causing the problem when we can put camera technology that is around now and actually catch these people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reporting offenders to police would take action against the problem rather than indirectly relocating it, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll go out here and dump rubbish, or they\u2019ll go find somewhere else to go and do it. So unless you actually address the problem, I don\u2019t see that this is actually fixing anything in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some submissions shared those concerns, but the majority supported closure to protect the recreational and cultural value of the maunga, Visser said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose the question for you is: do you choose not to attempt to fix this problem in this place because of the values of this place or just leave it as it is because it\u2019s just a much larger problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Larry Foster said he supported the paper, having seen the damage firsthand.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully this will help mitigate a lot of that, and people can still access it by bike or by walking any time of the night or day even if the gates are closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He expressed concern about the impact of the closure on watching the sunrise, but appreciated its flexibility based on event activity.<\/p>\n
Councillors Colin Alder, Teddy Thompson, Telfer and Gibson voted against the recommendation, but it passed with the other five councillors\u2019 support.<\/p>\n
The restriction will begin in early 2027 and will be reviewed for effectiveness in 2029. <\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gate installation was estimated to cost between $6000 and $10,000. Management of the closure would be part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16891,74,36122,138,651,17163,5205,26519,7557,71,12506,288540,84996,111,139,69,2847,6507,19551,384,1436,1314,20383,52047,61,6861,22052,7246,1533],"class_list":["post-617900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-able","tag-after","tag-bikers","tag-business","tag-close","tag-closure","tag-council","tag-councillors","tag-district","tag-from","tag-gisborne","tag-impose","tag-maunga","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-only","tag-overnight","tag-pedestrians","tag-people","tag-rise","tag-road","tag-roads","tag-titirangi","tag-to","tag-vehicles","tag-voted","tag-votes","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617900","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=617900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}