A SAD - AND WORRYING - DECISION: When I decided to live here it was because I fell in love with Tutukaka. I had thought I’d choose the Bay of Islands and was on my way there to look at possible properties but saw a sign saying “Tutukaka Coast.” Since I’d never heard of the Tutukaka Coast, I thought I’d take a look and found somewhere right next door to paradise. I stayed for the night and became increasingly sure that I had found what I was seeking. Still, I had not been to the Bay of Islands in forty years, so I drove up there and it was as beautiful as I remembered - except that I didnt remember that the coast appeared to be mostly mangrove swamp. Still, Russell is gorgeous, and on the car ferry the next morning it was almost idyllic - why wouldn’t I want to live there? Even so, I couldn’t get Tutukaka out of my mind, so on my way back to Auckland I stopped there again. I parked at the look-out and stared at the wondrous coast - and the Ngunguru lagoon - and half a dozen surfies arrived in their van and parked a little way from me. They huddled together as they puffed a joint - and kept glancing at me, slightly suspiciously. Finally, a couple of them came over to me and struck up a conversation. I told him that I was trying to make up mind between Bay of Islands and here. For them it was no contest. “Here, every time,” they agreed, with one adding: “This is less conquered.” It summed up my feelings exactly. The Bay of Islands has a more affluent, “conquered” feel to it - a playground of millionaires. Tutukaka not so much - a playground of semi-millionaires, perhaps, but still not quite conquered. Toot itself was not even called a village then - it was a settlement. I can’t say those surfies made the decision for me, but they affirmed the decision I had already made. Still, one cannot live by Toot (or even Ngunguru) alone, because shopping, supermarkets, is in Whangarei some 30 km to the south. Whangarei has long puzzled me. I remembered it from 1970 as an overgrown farming town, and in many ways it still is. It’s pleasant enough, and pretty much everything I need is there, but it feels - unloved. It’s beautifully situated on a complex coast, with waterways wending through parts of the city, but it is all nature’s triumph - man has not had a positive effect. All those wending waterways are zoned light industrial - heaven forfend the people should have access to the those pretty streams - and few attempts have been made to beautify the city. It’s all higgle-de-piggledy, mostly given over to the car, new car showrooms (and countless panel beaters) and supermarkets. There’s a “mall” - a shopping precinct - but even that feels unfinished, as if the Council had had a great idea but didnt have the balls to follow it through. Most of the architecture is Kiwi Functional - cheap and unimaginative - and there is no particular affection for the past. Part of Whangarei used to be called “Vinetown” (I’ve never been able to find out why) but it withers on the vine - functionality rules. There’s a huge rail yard which seems a bit pointless because there are no longer passenger trains to Auckland, and the station building, which could be early-twentieth-century charming, is being left to rot. There are a couple of bright spots - well, one - the vaunted Town Basin, by the yacht harbour, which is pretty enough, but you take your life in your hands crossing the road to it if the car park is full. Pedestrians are very much second best in Whangarei. In 1970, the Grand Hotel used to be quite grand - now it’s stuck, trapped, in a road network that has turned the lower end of Bank Street into a sorry mess. It’s quite depressing to go into the hotel. Some have tried - the Butter Factory is a terrific spot, the ground floor of an old 19th century stone building turned into a pleasant cafe - and there’s a lovely park which could be charming but which also battles the car again, it’s mostly parking. There isnt even a permanent Anzac memorial in Whangarei, which might give the town a “centre” - but absent that, I am constantly reminded of Gertrude Stein;s comment about Oakland: “There is no there there.” There’s a Farmer’s market on Saturday mornings - a triumphant popular success - but which happens in a too-small carpark that the market has to vacate by 10 am in favour of yet more cars. Given all the land that the WDC owns, you think they might be a little, more permanent space for a people’s market. But no - Functionality rules, and what puzzles me is the almost complete lack of civic pride in Whangarei. Where’s the love? There was some hope - the Hundertwasser Arts Centre (HAC), a madcap design to renovate and make used of an old, unused building near the Town Basin, but,m after along battle that bit the dust this week when the Council voted against it. Hundertwasser was a zany Austrian architect whose work has some comparison to the great Catalan architect, Gaudi, His major claim to fame is the public toilet block in Kawakawa, which might make you believe that Hobbits and Elves hold sway in Kiwiland. Completely functional, the toilets are also a riot of colour and imagination and are about the only reason to stop in Kawakawa unless you want petrol or a hamburger. Hundertwasser left behind some sketches for a revamp of an old (unused) building near where the Town Basin now is, there have lone been attempts to turn those sketches into reality. It’s been a long and contentious battle. The HAC has long been controversial, many seem positively affronted by its bright, zany optimism, the exact converse of Kiwi Functional and obviously I love it. But this isnt a case of sour grapes just because the Council dumped it. There is a move by some businessmen to keep the project going. What worries me more is the process of that decision. The new mayor was elected - in part perhaps - because she seemed to lean towards the HAC, but in the end she didnt fight for it, or fight enough. Instead, the Council came up with the idea of a Telephone Poll, to see what “the people”think. The poll was not good news for the HAC - 53% were against it - but this is a scarcely surprising result, because Whangarei has been financially mismanaged for years and little in the city’s (recent) history leans to the unusual. And leadership isnt about slavishly following polls - or I don’t think it should be - and a dangerous precedent has been set. From now on, anytime there is a sticky decision to be made, the Council can just ask for a poll and hide behind those results. So what happens now? Well, hopefully, the new coalition of business people can revive the HAC, but until they do there;s still that tawdry old building sitting unused by the Town Basin, completely despoiling what could be a very attractive areas. Otherwise, Mammon rules. Across the road from the Town Basin, PakandSave has remodelled their old building into a new, vast Cathedral to the Dollar, with an even bigger carpark making it even tricker to cross the road to the Town Basin. The new mayor is now claiming she could have done more to fight for the HAC (why didnt she?) and accepts that the ”no” vote is a blot on Whangarei’s future fund-raising capability. The old building that the HAC would have transformed will just sit there - unloved and unused - an eyesore. Whangarei goes back to a slumber undisturbed by nightmares that anything provocative will ever happen in the city. And I wonder where the civic pride is - where’s the love? Mind you, I wonder all this from my idyllic spot in the coast, right next door to paradise. :-) hundertwassernz.co.nz/Pages/the-project.aspx
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 00:25:41 +0000
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