Tauranga City Council will not ap peal Powerco's unpopular intention to build an electricity sub-station in the centre of a cluster of homes at Mount Maunganui.
Council voted 5-2 yesterday not to support the direction taken by its hearings panel in the case of Powerco's notice requiring council to designate a residential property at 574 Maunganui Rd for a sub-station.
The hearings panel, con sisting of an independent commissioner and Crs Mike Baker, Greg Brownless and David Stewart, had recommended to Powerco that it withdraw its notice requiring the designation.
The hearings panel's recommendation was based on the social intrusion and impact of the sub-station which was designed to look like a house except that it would be unoccupied and hold 15.4 tonnes of transformer oil within its walls.
Residents in six adjoining proper ties resent Powerco's plan, citing concerns about electro-magnetic fields, the threat of an explosion and the noise from fans when transfor mers were under peak loading.
Although Powerco's evidence last year about how it would remedy health and safety effects went large ly unchallenged, residents' bottom line was that nothing could diminish the undesirability of living next to a sub-station.
They argued at last November's hearing that it was all about perceptions, the impact on property values and the attraction of a vacant property to vandals. The hearings panel's recommendation went against staff advice.
Council was yesterday left with the decision whether to appeal the designation after Powerco rejected the advice of the hearings panel and approved its own application _ high lighting the powers that utilities have in imposing a designation.
Although meeting chairman and Mayor Stuart Crosby indicated that Crs Stewart, Baker and Brownless were entitled to vote on whether to appeal, Cr Wayne Moultrie suggested that to be entirely transparent the three members of the hear ings panel should abstain.
They did abstain, leaving the issue to be decided by Mr Crosby and six councillors _ Cr Hayden Evans was absent from yesterday's meeting.
Crs Bill Grainger and Catherine Stewart support ed taking the designation to appeal but were easily defeated.
If the three councillors who abstained had voted to appeal, it would have left Mr Crosby with the casting vote.
Mr Crosby had indicated during the meeting that he opposed the ap peal which would have cost up to $50,000.
Planning staff advised council yes terday that the chances of a success ful appeal were ``balanced'. If council had appealed it would have needed to employ a sociologist, or some other expert in this field, to support the hearing panel's opposition.
Staff said the social impact of the sub-station would have been quite hard to quantify.
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