First Post

Rānui is home. 

Welcome to Rānui

I moved to Rānui in the summer of 2009, and have been living here since then. I have raised two children in my home in Rānui. I have now lived in Rānui for a significant part of my life. 

View of sunset seen from the deck at my home in Rānui

According to the New Zealand History website nzhistory.govt.nz, the word Rānui is made up of rā meaning sun and nui meaning many. Rānui thus means plenty of sunshine.

Rānui aerial photo, 30 Sep 1974 (Photo: National Library of New Zealand)


Ranui Orchards, 18 September 1980 (Photo: National Library of New Zealand)


Why am I writing this blog? That is a good question. We forget things. I attempted to do a few things in the interest of the wider community of Rānui. I found out that I was starting to forget what happened and how events unfolded or fizzled out. Then I thought, I better document these things. While, of course, I do not want to write a novel, I am hoping this blog will serve a purpose of milestones along the way. 

INITIAL DECADE

It took me few months to get used to the new place. Working full time and having to travel to North Shore means I hardly had much spare time to explore the neighbourhood. I used to do a bit of running so managed to get a good appreciation of the locality from my training routes. Soon, I started to notice local issues of Rānui. By local issues, I mean those in the public realm. For example, streets, footpaths, drainage, parks, community space, and so on. I also became aware about the social issues of Rānui. Personally, I do not buy into the stigma and NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) thinking associated with Rānui. However, we have to acknowledge that Rānui has its issues. 

Since those initial days, I had this feeling and a voice in my head that I should be doing something about the local issues. Moreover, since I am a planner, I had an acute sense of the above-mentioned issues of my community. But was not sure what to do, where to start and how to proceed.

Until 2019 for a decade of living in Rānui, my action about the local issues was limited to discussing them at home and with friends. Occasionally, I made a few calls to the council to report about minor matters such as an overgrown bush or a graffiti.

PUBLIC MEETING, JULY 2020

On 12 June 2020, I wrote a post about traffic and infrastructure issues of Rānui and Swanson in the local Facebook Group - Swanson / Ranui Community Group. That post attracted 90 comments within a few days. There were some passionate discussions. You can view the post and read comments if you have access to the Facebook Group.

Map from the Facebook post of 12 June 2020 made in the Swanson / Ranui Community Group.

Text from the Facebook post of 12 June 2020 made in the Swanson / Ranui Community Group.

A couple of things happened after the Facebook post of 12 June. Barbara Adler, a resident of Candia Road who had lobbied for a footpath on Candia Road (Facebook Group - Candia Road - Make it Safe) for many years got in touch with me. As per discussion with Barbara and suggestions from members of the Swanson / Ranui Community Group, on 28 July 2020, we held a public meeting at Swanson School. 16 residents from Swanson and Rānui attend the meeting. That was surprisingly a good turnout, given it was the middle of a pandemic and winter. The topics we discussed at the meeting were (1) Candia Road; (2) Road safety around Swanson and Rānui. The meeting lasted for two hours until 8PM in the evening.

As soon as I made the Facebook post of 12 June and after the public meeting, number of emails in my inbox started to increase rapidly. Documents of all sorts started to pile up very fast. List of things to do ballooned within a short period of time. In addition to messages from residents, I had correspondences with elected members of the Local Board and Auckland Transport.

Letter from Auckland Transport in response to request for official information

Very soon it reached a stage where I was overwhelmed. I simply ran out of time to follow things up. It is not an excuse but the lockdowns, in addition to my other commitments, did not help to continue. There were a few action items from the public meeting that I was supposed to follow-up but they soon fell down the priority list. Gradually, unfortunately, things fell apart and after some time things got quiet. The momentum to get something done was lost, for which I take responsibility and felt very, very bad. 

SWANSON ROAD PEDESTRIAN CROSSING, JUNE 2020

In June 2020, Auckland Transport was seeking public feedback on the proposed "Swanson Road, Swanson - Pedestrian improvements". I wrote a post on 23 June 2020 about this in the Facebook Group Swanson / Ranui Community Group, and requested residents to make a submission. I forwarded all 50 comments made to my Facebook post to AT, along with my personal feedback including the photos I took of the location of the site of the proposed crossing. My feedback was to reconsider the appropriate location of the crossing and to add other safety measures along the road on both sides of the crossing. 

Proposed Swanson Road pedestrian improvements, June 2020.

It was hardly a surprise that AT decided to "proceed without changes". See the email from AT below.


PLAN CHANGE 38, DECEMBER 2020

I wrote a Facebook post about Plan Change 38 that was notified for public submission by Auckland Council on 5 December 2020. This was change to the Unitary Plan seeking medium and high density residential zoning for 2.65 hectare of land located at 522-524 Swanson Road i.e. the Western Park Village site. I personally did not make a submission. My post about it did not attract many discussion.

SWANSON ROAD SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS, MARCH 2021

I did not write about this proposal of AT. I noticed others were actively encouraging the community in the Facebook Groups to make a submission. I made a personal submission.

AUCKLAND COUNCIL LONG-TERM PLAN, MARCH 2021 

I wrote identical posts in two Facebook groups about the long-term plan. This time instead of asking to make submission, I floated the idea of a Resident and Ratepayers' Group. There were a few discussion but not overly too many. See posts and comments below:
Swanson / Ranui Community Group, posted 11 March 2021
Swanson / Massey / Ranui Community Group, posted 7 March 2021

Henderson-Massey Local Board held a round table event about the long-term plan at the Henderson Civic, 6 Henderson Valley Road. I attended this event on 16 March. I made my submission to the long-term plan. 


LESSONS LEARNED 

  • We need a collective action of the community if we are to get results. More members of the community have to come on board. 
  • An individual's action and effort goes only that far. She or he will get tired and get overwhelmed sooner or later.
  • Members of the community will engage if you raise the right issue at the right time.
  • People of Rānui have more than once said to me, "nothing will happen here", "they do not care about us".

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

The issues of Rānui will not go anywhere until we did something about it. 

The open channel drains will remain open. These drains are an accident waiting to happen. When they are filled with stormwater, they are a dangerous trap for people and vehicles. I once saw a postie's delivery vehicle fall into one of them. Luckily she was OK.

Traffic accidents will keep occurring. There have been two fatal accidents on Simpson Road next to the intersection of Simpson and Metcalfe roads, literally few meters apart within the past few years. A while ago, a motorbike rider lost life in Candia Road. 


Approximate locations of three fatal accidents. 
(1) February 2015, Intersection of Simpson Road and Metcalfe Road, Car accident Since this accident, the intersection has been upgraded with street lights and traffic island. At the site of the crash a white wooden cross can be seen along with flowers and occasionally a few cans of drinks (likes of V drinks). More than once I have seen a few sad looking young persons at this site standing with their heads bowed down. This is very close to where I live, and I pass this intersection almost daily . 
(2) September 2020, Simpson Road, Car accident There is a stone memorial in memory of the deceased at this unfortunate site of crash. I have noticed a dim white light at this site while going out for a walk early morning or driving past Simpson Road in the evening. I have not yet gathered courage to go close to this memorial stone. 

The unsafe roads, crossings and intersections will continue to prevent our children from walking and biking to school. You will have to keep running for your life while crossing the road.

The potholes on Metcalfe Road right next to the railway lines will continue to appear.

We will have to keep walking towards incoming traffic on roads without footpaths or where our footpaths abruptly end. We will keep tripping over broken concrete, and will keep slipping over mossy footpaths.

On one had, population of Rānui continues to grow due to the infill and new developments that are happening around our neighbourhood. On the other hand, Rānui doesn't get matching investment in infrastructure (road, footpath, drainage, intersections, local parks) upgrade to match the population growth. This is a recipe to further worsen the already existing problems of our community.

Our roads and other infrastructure were fit for purpose when the area used to be orchards and a rural area. For decades we have been an urban suburb but our infrastructures have largely remained the same as they were when Rānui used to be a rural area. 

These are only ones that I can recall at the time of writing. I am sure there are numerous other issues. As you can see, what we have here is accidents waiting to happen. How many more un-necessary fatal accidents do we need to endure until our roads are upgraded? How many more frustrated community members do we need to see until we do something about our problems?

The Rānui community is not asking for too much. What they are asking are basic things. If the community's plea continues to go unattended, the people of Rānui will continue to be disengaged and remain disenfranchised. If we did nothing, problems of Rānui will continue to grow. The community, sadly, will remain stigmatised. 

I am thinking about and looking for ways to get results. Let's see how it goes.

(I will try to keep adding photos and other details to this post)

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