- By Laura Kvigstad, Auckland Council reporter
Funded by New Zealand on Air
A private plan change that would allow a 3000-dwelling development in Beachlands is pushing forward.
At Auckland Council’s Planning, Environment and Parks committee on December 8, members accepted a private plan change request on 307 hectares of land in Beachlands.
Rather than adopting or rejecting the application, accepting the request opens up the plan change for submission.
Chair Richard Hills said if members rejected the application it could go to court, cutting council out of negotiations.
“This is accepting the process… everyone comes around the table, then goes through the submission process. Public will have their say,” Hills said.
Lead planner Craig Cairncross said the applicant’s proposed development presented issues around the infrastructure constraints for the area.
“Transport constraints relate to several existing safety issues along the Whitford-Maraetai Road and limited public transport,” Cairncross said.
He said a draft funding plan from the applicant proposed a $75 million contribution towards transport infrastructure including several intersection upgrades and a $16 million contribution to increase the capacity of the Pine Harbour ferry services.
“The applicant is not proposing any contribution for the widening of the Whitford Maraetai Road to four lanes.”
Cairncross said the development would also move against council’s emission reduction targets with 80 per cent of Beachlands’ population relying on private vehicles to get to work.
Cr Maurice Williamson said the Beachlands development could not be considered in isolation because the effects would ripple out to the Howick ward.
“The concern I have is that Beachlands, Maraetai, are feeding so many more people into our area for schools, for our roads, for our medical care,” Williamson said.
He said the impact on Howick would be huge and developers would need to pay a huge amount of money for the infrastructure needed to accommodate the population growth.
Independent Māori Statutory Board member Tau Henare said he was “gobsmacked” by the opposition.
“I live in a community where there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of apartments going up… no new infrastructure, more kids at school, more people in the chemist but these are all working class families,” Henare said.
“When we see a plan out east we get ‘we can’t afford this, we can’t afford that’… we have not got enough resources in Te Atatu but there are literally hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of new homes that have gone up in my area.”
If council rejected the plan, he said “these people will go to court and we will lose. In a time where the mayor has said we want to save money, we are about to spend money to say no.”
Cr Sharon Stewart said the area was in desperate need of a secondary school to accommodate a population growth.
“The roading and the infrastructure, it is just not going to cope. Already every morning there is gridlock, just about every second day there is a serious accident out there and the emergency services can’t get out there,” Stewart said.
Cr Andy Baker said Beachlands had doubled in size since 2010 and infrastructure issues were longstanding.
Baker said the Franklin local board were “donkey deep” in discussions with the Ministry of Education trying to get a secondary school in the area and that nine buses leave Beachlands every day to take kids to school.
“If this plan change goes through, it is the opportunity to fix those issues because it creates scale,” he said.
Council will need to publicly notify the private plan change request within the next four months.
