Gulf Harbour Country Club on the Whangaparāoa Peninsula golf course. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
A community group on Auckland's Whangaparāoa Peninsula is calling on council to uphold its 1000-year commitment to protect a golf course 10 minutes from town.
The owner of the Gulf Harbour Country Club closed the course last year, with residents now fearing they will lose a beloved green space.
Earlier this week, the Keep Whangaparaoa's Green Spaces group presented council with a petition with over 4000 signatures, urging them to uphold the encumbrance for the 90-hectare site, meaning it cannot be touched for nearly 1000 years.
Spokesperson Howard Baldwin said the land was important to the community.
"The original concept for Gulf Harbour was a world class marina, and a world class golf course, and a community that supported both," he said.
"That's really its importance."
Baldwin said they wanted someone else to take over the land to keep it maintained.
"We had the World Cup of Golf there in the early 2000s," he said.
"We just want it restored to its previous condition."
Residents around the golf course have been maintaining it themselves since its closure last year.
"We've got well in excess of 1500 to 2000 properties in the Gulf Harbour area that were purchased with a reliance on the encumbrance for green space," Baldwin said.
"Some of those properties, about four to six hundred, back onto the golf course itself."
Gulf Harbour Country Club on the Whangaparāoa Peninsula golf course. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
Baldwin said course's closure had taken a toll on the mental health of those who cared about it.
He said he had people weeping to him over the phone and upset members of the golf club coming up to him on the street.
"They become visibly upset, simply because of what's happened to this beautiful area."
Auckland councillor John Watson said council had a strong obligation to protect the golf course.
"It's a very strong statement of the intention to preserve that land as a golf course, as open space zoned, for literally the next 1000 years," he said.
The petition had been passed on to the relevant staff at Auckland Council, Watson said.
He said there was a huge amount of public interest in Whangaparāoa.
"This really affects the balance of Whangaparāoa Peninsula, because of the infrastructure constraints and the significant adverse effects that would occur in respect of any lifting of the [encumbrance], or any overturning the planning history that has dictated the development here for decades."
The director of the golf club, Wayne Bailey, declined RNZ's request for comment.