A Tauranga widow will feel like "an animal in a zoo" to passing traffic if she becomes the only person in her neighbourhood left living beside a planned new arterial link road into town.
Tauranga lawyer Kate Barry-Piceno was putting the case for why the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) should buy the Hammond St property owned by Christine Dean, 64.
Mrs Dean's house sits just outside the land which the NZTA needs to acquire to build the road to funnel Welcome Bay and Ohauiti traffic through a cutting under SH29 at Hairini.
Ms Barry-Piceno said eight other houses near the southern end of Hammond St were in the process of being purchased by the agency for removal to make way for the new road.
She was putting a case to a city council hearing yesterday to designate the land for the road. The hearing was before independent commissioner.
