The Phoenix carpark plan confirmed by the city council this week means the Mount Maunganui north area will actually get all the additions that the project's detractors have been complaining about, says councillor Leanne Brown.

'People are coming up with all sorts of rash ideas about why it won't work, but I think the logic behind it actually outweighs the few people who are grasping at straws being anti-something that they don't know is going to work,” says Leanne.

'New toilets, more lighting, a lot of people wanted better signage – all those things are going to happen because of this project.

'They are going to end up in a better position. It is just going to be a bit of time before it becomes a reality.”

The work on changing the carpark into an urban pedestrian space with a parking fringe is expected to take place mid-2018.

It is a decision that has taken seven years since the 2011 decision by the council to sell the carpark for a joint venture retail and parking building.

It was achieved by Cr Brown's compromise in retaining an angle parking fringe along the carpark's May Street border.

It united the mainstreet retailers' vote, which was about one third in favour of the park and one third in favour of keeping some carparks.

The carparks were given as the reason why councillors Rick Curach and Catherine Stewart voted against the project at the council meeting. Mayor Greg Brownless didn't give a reason.

Catherine challenged the claim there are now more carparks in Mount Maunganui, saying the Nikau Crescent carparks merely formalized an existing informal parking area. This was refuted by Cr Brown.

Cr Steve Morris says the council has spent years dithering over the decision and it needs to be made so the council could get on with the bigger issue of the entire Mount north area.

Transformation committee chairman Larry Baldock says the decision a few years back to remove cars from the Strand Reclamation has resulted in a revived city waterfront and an incredible response from the community.

He thinks the debate over the Phoenix carpark is overly related to car parking. It is the best spot in the Mount and should be for the enjoyment of people, not cars.

Outside the meeting, Leanne says she uses the Pilot Bay boardwalk decision as a bench mark. The boardwalk decision was vilified by a hostile section of the community right up until it was in use, and there hasn't been a word against it since.

'I use the pilot bay boardwalk as my baseline of what was a brave decision back then that no one I don't believe would change for love nor money now.

'I think it was a good compromise,” says Leanne. '69 per cent of them want some form of urban space and only 34 per cent want it retained as a carpark.”

The design, which is yet to be finalized is not a park, or a green space or a sports field.

'Looking at Brittomart as a classic example of a mixed surface multi-use open space where people can relax, check their phones, have their lunch, meet a friend have a coffee.

'People when they have to walk to those spaces, they will spend money on the way. They'll relax when they are there, they will stay longer, they'll spend more.”

She compares walking from a carpark in Nikau Crescent or May Street to walking down Devonport Road, or crossing the Bayfair carpark or from one side of the Bethlehem town centre to the other.

'People still have that feeling that they would like to park outside the shop they are going to, and not actually realizing how far they walk when they do go to the mall. And you still have to circulate in the mall to find a park anyway.

'All those things are all factored in to why I thought this was a good decision for everybody.

'I had to take a risk. I've listened long and hard and I did lose sleep over it, but if I hadn't made that move it would have ended up potentially being a full urban space and we wouldn't have the 20 extra parks, and we wouldn't have the opportunity to improve the public transport and the bus frequency and the reliability of the buses and cycleways and one way systems – all those things that will happen in the next three years. And then we will have a really good understanding of whether we do need those parks or not and if we do we can retain them and if we don't they can go.

'In the meantime we are getting those formalized parks that aren't that far they will be well lit, people will be able to use them, the May street car parks at the back when they go to restaurants, they will be well lit and have more parks that what the phoenix car park has now.”