To All Matarangi Residents and Ratepayers, their Families and Friends
Support Matarangi Open Spaces - Make a Submission to the TCDC Long Term Plan
This is a call to arms!
Not in the sense of storming the TCDC offices in Thames and taking the Mayor and the Council members hostage!
It’s about our protecting our open spaces and their amenities: the spit head walk, the golf course, the lawn bowls rink, and the Community Centre at the clubhouse.
We need hundreds of individual submissions requesting TCDC support us. Please read on.
These are the facts:
1. TCDC has been derelict in its duty in the past to protect Matarangi’s open spaces. There is no doubt around this. Even the TCDC has admitted this.
2. Over the past 30 years, TCDC has clearly and conveniently overlooked the need for such protection of our valuable community assets; those things that make Matarangi the fantastic place it has become - the open spaces which form our playground.
3. We need to protect all the open spaces around Matarangi, so as to prevent them from being developed for future housing.
4. Currently, there is nothing stopping a new developer in the future from obtaining planning permission from a future TCDC to develop the open space in Matarangi. TCDC would have no hesitation in giving approval because of the rates revenue such a development would attract and generate.
5. We need the open space land to be covenanted in perpetuity so as to stop future TCDC’s from giving such planning permission.
6. We must act now!
7. We recommend that you, your relatives and friends make a personal, individualised submission to the TCDC Long Term Plan (LTP) supporting Option 2 or Option 3, both of which share the future funding of the Matarangi open space being shared between the TCDC and all Matarangi ratepayers”.
8. These options envisage a TCDC contribution together with a targeted rate from Matarangi ratepayers of around $150 per annum per rateable unit.
9. Public submissions to the TCDC LTP 2021-2031 are open until April 12
10. The whole Matarangi community depends on you to do your thing and to make your submission as recommended by your Matarangi Ratepayers Association and Community Trust.
Come to the Drop-in Help at the Community Centre from Easter Saturday to Monday
Go to www.ourmatarangi.com for further information. How to make a submission and answers to the FAQs and the sorry history of the past 30 years in terms of the treatment handed down to Matarangi residents by the TCDC, and the huge amount of work which has been put in by members of the MRAI on behalf of its members, as well as for all Matarangi ratepayers, whether they have been members or not.
Mark Bedford
Chair MRAI
Alastair MacCormick
Chair Matarangi Community Trust