Arthur
Yesterday a majority of Wellington City Councillors, a split of 9-6, voted for the sale of Council land for the controversial development at the presently picturesque Shelley Bay. This is a development that will, in the long run, turn into another Oriental Bay. It will become a semi-private region for Wellington’s well-heeled elite to feel smug about themselves as they suck on soy decaf lattes, eat odd food with quinoa and kale in it and generally revel at how a developer managed to bend a council around his little finger so he could sell to them a very nice place to live in a potentially semi-private area.
In conjunction with lunatic council moves to make the north section of the road around the Miramar peninsula one way with a cycle lane hogging one half of the old road they are ensured a quiet enclave that is far more relaxed than now as far as passing traffic goes. Ah, coincidences and how they work out.
Some history and problems.
Mayor Foster was elected on the platform of not approving of this project and many councillors made noises and sang from the same song sheet only to backtrack post-election. The whole concept is controversial in many aspects and to many Wellingtonians, it reeks like a week-dead rat in the midday sun. Here is a small list of issues surrounding the deal.
- Shady goings on from backroom deals with a developer that seems to shape the WCC development thinking and who appears to have undue influence.
- The affordable housing accord being misused or at least very elastically interpreted to get consent for what are going to be quite pricy apartments out of reach of most first home buyers.
- The council (ratepayers) being coerced by the developer to pay for infrastructure upgrade costs on the coast road when the developer is liable. Naturally the WCC wants to concede to this bullying like the compliant dolts they are.
- The development going ahead puts an extra burden on an already clogged Cobham Drive and the entire inadequate State Highway road from Willis Street through the inadequate Mount Victoria tunnel out to the airport. In essence this is typical WCC behaviour in putting the cart before the horse.
- The WCC having pontificated about the Miramar peninsula being a nature reserve including being the existing nesting site of Little Blue Penguins now wants to put 350 people in an area where they nest.
- The WCC has waffled and wittered long and hard about sea level rise from climate change (sigh), flood danger from tsunamis and the danger to housing and yet votes to go ahead with this (and other) developments barely two metres above sea level.
- Last and quite importantly local iwi are split over the bargain basement price of the sale of the land without a majority agreement to the sale. An article in the Herald states:
A group within Taranaki Whanui, called Mau Whenua, has lodged court action over the sale, alleging the deal failed to get the necessary support from 75 per cent of iwi members to go ahead. A court hearing is set down for March next year.
Also the dreaded ‘Treaty’ word has reared its head.
“By failing to carry out due diligence in the first instance, and failing to act when owners did not approve the sale of our land, you breached the Treaty of Waitangi Article Two and alienated Maori from their land.”
That statement alone should have raised warning flags. So too should this statement from Dr Catherine Love who said there was “absolutely no way” the original PNBST trustees would sell land at Shelly Bay. “A sale was not on the cards.”
Not content to ignore that red flag they ignored another.
She ended Mau Whenua’s submission with a stark warning to councillors.
“You face today your Ihumatao moment. Please think wisely, use today to put an end to the conflict that has been, and the risk of further conflict.”
Are these councillors who voted for the go-ahead completely unaware of things Treaty and Ihumatao? Apparently so.
But wait there is more, as they say in the infomercials.
But a lawyer acting on behalf of Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh said there was no deal.
Jackson lives nearby and has been a vocal opponent of the development once describing it as one that “will invoke blocks of Soviet-era apartments dumped on Wellington’s picturesque peninsula.”
Lawyer Craig Stevens argued no binding legal agreement has been entered into between the council and the Wellington Company.
The full NZ Herald article also features a couple of typical WCC councillor Karens who voted for the go-ahead, one complete with weird hair colouring and uniform correct hedge clipper haircut that must have involved Edward Scissorhands after a bottle or two of gin.
To anyone following this over the years, it has been a fiasco and a circus. The trouble is that it is a circus run by the clowns for the clowns and funded by financially exhausted ratepayers.
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