St Michael’s Remuera plaza project

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

St Michael’s Parish in Remuera, Auckland, is planning to develop its amenities to provide a gathering space and safer traffic movements around the church and the adjacent parish school.

The proposed project has three components:

An addition to the front of the church with a new ‘gathering space’
The creation of a plaza which would connect three sites in the church’s ownership and would incorporate the road between them
Alteration of the parking and access arrangement for the church and school.

Vehicle traffic for the site would be re-directed in a one-way system around the existing house at 4 Beatrice Road, which would allow for 20 off street parking spaces as well as for pick up and drop offs.

The parish is proposing to sell the three flats it owns at 8 Beatrice Rd, next door to the parish house, to raise funds for developing the parish amenities.

Last week a local suburban newspaper the East & Bays Courier, reported it had received a copy of its latest survey about the project, which sought a blessing from the parish to go ahead with the sale of 8 Beatrice Rd.

The newspaper said the person who provide the survey to the newspaper did so anonymously.

It also published a remark by the unnamed source that it was “foolish to sell income-producing property to finance an old man’s folly.”

The old man referred to is, presumably, the long standing parish priest St Michael’s, Monsignor Brian Arahill.

The Catholic Diocese of Auckland’s communications officer Dame Lyndsay Freer says the statements made in reference to St Michael’s parish priest are ridiculous.

The comments about Monsignor Arahill are “disgusting” because he has dedicated himself to the parish and surrounding community for some time, Freer says. It is “reprehensible” the writer did not have the courage to identify themselves, she says.

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