Letters: Residents should have been consulted

Ray Lefeuvre, with residents of Percy Rd, Papamoa, who are angry about a new subdivision . Photo/file

Residents should have been consulted
I was concerned to read the article "Subdivision ticked without consultation" (News, July 8) about the unfortunate residents in Percy Rd, Papamoa, who have been denied any input into a proposed 23 lot residential subdivision adjacent to their cul de sac .

I live in a residential cul de sac in Brookfield, and I feel their pain. People who live in cul de sacs have a reasonable expectation that they will be protected from the impacts of additional traffic. After all, that is one of the main reasons why they buy a property there in the first place.

I do not agree with the assessment by the Tauranga City Council Planner that 23 additional houses on the end of this cul de sac generating up to 230 additional cars using Percy Rd are less than minor, and the residents obviously feel this too. I have no idea what criteria the council uses to assess the effects of a subdivision on the local environment, but in this case, in my view, they failed to protect the rights of the local residents in Percy Rd to oppose a development with potentially significant local traffic effects.

The council's District Plan needs to include more stringent criteria to ensure that the effects of residential development on existing cul de sacs are more closely assessed to ensure that this situation does not occur again.
(Abridged)

Peter Nixon
Brookfield

Tauranga - the city of cones
Auckland is known as "The city of sails". Tauranga should be known as "The city of cones".

It seems that every road has cones on it because of road works. The frustrating thing is that they appear to be there for months on end, with apparently nobody doing anything.

The "Temporary" signs are becoming permanent. Why is this? Surely, if the council concentrated on just a few jobs at a time, they could be quickly finished, and the cones removed.

Or was there a fire sale of cones and the council bought all of them up, and had no place to store them?

What really does need attention, are the road markings which in many places have almost worn away. Especially at roundabouts, which is a hazard when two vehicles are using them side by side.

Somebody in the Council Traffic Department please get your priorities in order.

Chris Pattison
Papamoa