Peace is all we want

Portage Rd is noisy, say residents, but it'll be far louder when a childcare centre expands. Debrin Foxcroft reports.
From the footpath outside Gloria Horan-Crann's home she can hear the constant chatter, laughter and screaming of children.
She hears the chorus as she walks up her driveway at the tail-end of Portage Rd. She can still hear them when she sits in her lounge.
Noise carries from Green Bay Early Childhood Centre across the road to her home. Then there are the parents driving in and out to drop and collect their children.
She thinks it's bad now, but it's only going to get worse for Mrs Horan-Crann.
Waitakere City Council has given the centre consent to expand. Big time. The noise from 26 children will increase as the centre can now take up to 76 children.
And 26 of those places will be reserved for children under the age of two.
"As it is, it's a pain," she says. "The situation is only going to get a lot worse."
Mrs Horan-Crann, her husband, Bryant Crann, and neighbour, Roy Evans opposed the expansion.
Their main concerns are the noise, traffic and the pressure on the already strained neighbourhood.
"We are a little dead-end street. Our facilities haven't been upgraded in a long time, our sewerage system barely copes now. The infrastructure is not ready," says Mrs Horan-Crann.
Mr Evans agrees. "Every time they put in a new house, it causes problems on the water pipes," he says.
The residents are particularly upset with the owners of the land the childcare centre occupies, Scouting Auckland. "They have not been good neighbours," says Mrs Horan-Crann.
"Because they are the landlords, we thought they would be responsible. We put forward our concerns to them only to find they had already approved it."
Bob Macaulay, from Scouting Auckland, says his group has had limited say in the matter.
"We have been involved in the whole process to the same extent as the neighbours," he says. "Other than that I have no comment."
Elaine Ford is the head of Emerald Forest, the company that owns the childcare centre. The benefit of a larger centre to accommodate the community's needs outweighs the concerns, she says.
"We need childcare centres for our children and you are always going to have objections. But you could hardly find a better location. The traffic won't be that bad because the mixed age groups mean traffic will be staggered through the day."
The owner wants to calm residents' concerns about the number of children that will be accepted by the new centre.
"Because the process is so involved, it's logical to go for the largest number permitted on site," she says.
"In the end, our main concern is for the children and it's not a given that we will go straight up to 76."
Commissioner Judy Lawley emphasises that applications are considered purely in terms of the Resource Management Act.
"As a commissioner, our task is to grant permission if everything falls in line with the RMA," she says. "With RMA applications, we can't look at the needs or social consequences of the community - only if it fits the resource consent criteria.
"This application met all those conditions according to the advice of the specialists we spoke to."
But experts or not, this rationalisation doesn't change things for Mrs Horan-Crann. "For us, it's about not being able to sit down in your own home for moments of peace and calm," she says.