Consultant fights pressure to shift motorway vent site

Architect impression of the Waterview tunnel connection for State Highway 20. Photo / Supplied

Efforts by Waterview residents to keep a planned motorway emissions tower away from their primary school have been dealt a blow by a senior Auckland Council consultant.

Landscape architect Dennis Scott told the board of inquiry hearing Transport Agency applications for $1.7 billion of motorway developments that a vent stack at the northern end of a pair of 2.5km tunnels should be built where proposed by the agency - on the western side of Great North Rd near Waterview Primary School.

He said he did not agree with a bid by community groups backed by the Eden Albert Local Board for the tower to be built 60 metres across the road on a site above Oakley Creek.

But council air quality team leader Janet Petersen said in written evidence to yesterday's board hearing that she agreed moving the stack would reduce air quality effects on the school.

Auckland Council member Sandra Coney, who chairs its parks, recreation and heritage forum, also confirmed to the Herald late yesterday that the forum had resolved to recommend support for the alternative site to the next meeting of the council's regional development and operations committee.

Mr Scott said under cross-examination at the planning hearing that the emissions stack should be kept together with planned tunnel ventilation buildings "to secure some integrity of the function of these buildings".

The Transport Agency initially planned to build towers at least 25m high at the Waterview and Owairaka ends of the tunnels.

But it has since gained acceptance from Ms Pedersen and an independent consultancy commissioned by the board of inquiry that these could be reduced to 15m with little extra effect on surface air quality.

Agency air quality consultant Gavin Fisher told the board earlier yesterday that ground-level concentrations of pollutants would increase "very slightly" within 50m of lower stacks, but said these would still account for only about 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent of limits set by national environmental stan-dards.

Mr Scott agreed with Douglas Allan, lawyer for several local groups including Living Communities, that the towers would be large undisguisable structures - whether they be 15m or 25m high.

He said of the planned northern tower that it needed prominence so it could be turned into "a public sculpture - a piece of public art" which could be a cause for celebration for the local community.

He acknowledged a suggestion by Mr Allan that the tower could also serve as a reminder to the community that "the Transport Agency came along one day and put a motorway through its midst, and a stack".

But Mr Scott said local residents were only one of several communities with a stake in the development, others being those passing through or visiting the area, and he was concerned at the potential effect on the green belt quality of Oakley Creek if the stack were to be built overlooking it.