The Sandringham Post
What is this all about?
I have been following the construction of and have written a news story on the Bharatiya Mandir Hindu Temple on Balmoral road and how they are wanting to extend their car park along Arabi Street. The board was considering knocking down the surrounding 3-5 houses beside it to extend the car park. This site has my final blog post on this issue, as well as discussion about the Pohutakawa tree on the corner of Arabi Street and Patterson Avenue. I have interviewed one of my neighbors, Eileen Thorne, and her thoughts about this issue are posted here also!
To see recent survey's conducted about carpark construction and the temple, click here, here and here.
Local Hindu Temple Plans To Extends Car Park – Aggravates Community
O'Dwyer 23/10/2015
A neighborhood street in Balmoral has new car park construction plans raising issues with the public.
The Bharatiya Mandir Hindu Temple on the corner of Balmoral Road and Arabi Street wants to extend their car park along Arabi Street, and build an ancillary hall beside the original Temple. However, many of the local residents are against this.
The dispute began in 2010 when the Auckland City Council held a hearing to grant permission for the Temple, which has been standing since 1991.
Before the Temple was able to even consider this, the board of the Bharatiya Mandir had to get permission from the neighbouring three houses.
The Temple bought the three houses along the length of Arabi Street towards Patterson Avenue; so they could decide what to do with them when continuing with their plan for the extension.
To build this car park, management of the Temple were planning to remove a Pohutukawa tree on the corner of Arabi Street and Patterson Avenue.
The Pohutukawa tree has stood for more than 80 years and in 2011 when several meetings were held, the Temples board did not receive resource consent to remove the tree.
However, on the tenth of October 2015, residents surrounding the Temple heard chainsaws and upon investigating, they realized workmen were cutting down the Pohutukawa tree.
Many residents contacted the council, and after several conversations back and forth the community realized there was nothing they could do about the tree removal.
The Temple signed their resource consent in 2011, stating they wouldn’t cut down the tree.
However, the council noted the temple could now cut down the tree if they liked as the national protection on Pohutakawa trees has been lifted.
The temple can only cut down the tree if it’s not connected with the car park building plans, as that would go against their resource consent.
The leaders of the temple have managed to find a loophole around this; they have now removed the tree legally but are still planning to go ahead with the car park extension ideas.
Eileen Thorne, resident of Arabi Street for 22 years, states the Temple agreed to keep the tree on her street so if they do cut it down, they’re going against their resource consent.
The negative consequence of the new car park and hall could mean more traffic along the road of Arabi Street because more individuals will be visiting the Hindu Temple.
Although the car park will lessen parked cars on the street, it could attract more visitors to the Temple meaning Arabi Street is more congested.
Interviewee Mrs Thorne hopes the car park, “will be of a benefit, and reduce the amount of traffic”.
The board of The Bharatiya Mandir Hindu Temple believes the new hall will be beneficial as it can provide a kitchen, a school area for the attending Hindu children, and a function room for weddings.
What concerns most residents about the extension wanted for the Temple, is the length of time it will take to complete the build.
When the original Temple was built from 1991-1993, it caused a lot of noise and distraction for local residents.
Some neighbours even had to “move out” of their homes during the day, due to the Temples continuous building.
Since the hearings carried out in 2010 and 2011 there hasn’t been much progress with the finalized idea for the car park.
Residents continue to be wary about the up and coming extension, but until a further discussion is carried out, shouldn’t worry it will happen anytime soon.
Interview over Temple
Could you please say your full name?
“Eileen Thorne.”
How long have you been living in Balmoral?
“I’ve lived here for 22 years.”
How close do you live to the temple?
“Just across the road to me.”
Have you ever visited the Hindu Temple?
“I’ve never been inside I’ve just looked from the outside.”
How would you describe the suburb and the people in it?
“Most of the people that I know anything about in the suburb are middle class to working class. Now of course we have a lot more immigrants over the last seven years I suppose.”
Where you asked about the decision for the temples extension or did you just hear it was going to happen?
“No, we just heard about it when we were given a letter from the council, asking us to attend a meeting when the Temple were going to apply for a resource consent. A group of us neighbours quite near the Temple were concerned and we went to the meeting in town to find out exactly what they proposed, and it was quite interesting because we were given quite a lot of information, pamphlets about what they planned to do. Which was; make a carport, keep the three houses beside it, and blast out the rock under those three houses, and then build an underground carpark, I think it was going to be on two levels, and then another level was going to be a Kitchen and a children’s school area, for the Hindu children. Then of course then they planned on doing more weddings, at the temple. That is quite a lucrative thing to have, at a Temple. They had a great amount of people, in suits, who were telling us things about what they felt was the right way to go in forming this particular construction, and also what they were going to do as far as the grounds outside and it looked and sounded very attractive.”
How do you think the construction of the carpark at the Bharatiya Mandir Temple will affect you? Why?
“Well, I think once it’s finished, the carpark must be of a benefit, because it will mean that, hopefully, a lot of people who know park their cars, on the road which reduces the amount of traffic we, you know, it really makes a tremendous difference to how fast you can get down the road when you’ve got cars parked both sides, because the road is not made for four lanes, it’s only a three lane road, so that will be difficult, but the thing is, if they park their cars in their area, their car parking area, then it should improve the flow of traffic but that will take quite some time.”
What do you think about saving the Pohutukawa tree they nearly cut down, on the corner of Patterson Avenue and Arabi Street?
“Well, I think that is definitely against the resource consent that they were given way back in 2011, because there was somebody there from the parks area, and somebody that came to support our protest against the resource consent, who said that they would need to do a lot of protecting of the roots of that tree, because it is a massive big tree, and they actually agreed to do that and that’s why they were given the resource consent, so if they actually cut it down, then they’re going against what they’ve been given.”
The Pohutukawa tree on Arabi Street has been an issue surrounding the Temple's rebuild recently. The Temple had signed a resource content in 2011, stating they wouldn’t cut down the tree. However, last month the national protection over Pohutukawa tree’s was dropped. The temple can cut down the tree as it’s on their land, HOWEVER, they can’t cut down the tree if they are going to build the temple, as this goes against their resource consent.
The temple managed to find a loophole around this, they have now cut down the tree and have technically done 'nothing' wrong. They stated they were just cutting it down for viewing reasons, except now with the tree is gone they can build the extension for the temple without getting in any trouble.