Opposition remains to Northland Rescue Helicopter shifting from Kensington to Onerahi. Photo / Tania Whyte
Opposition remains to Northland Rescue Helicopter shifting from Kensington to Onerahi. Photo / Tania Whyte
Whangārei District Council's decision to go ahead with consenting work towards a new $150 million district airport has hardened Onerahi rescue helicopter opponents' resolve.
Longtime Onerahi helicopter opponent and member of the former airport noise management consultative committee Carole Doherty said the Onerahi airport's future was still clearly in question.
Doherty said uncertainty over the airport's future, along with noise concerns, were the main reason Northland Emergency Services Trust (NEST) had not shifted its Kensington base to Onerahi airport in 2014.
Nothing much had changed eight years down the track, as evidenced by Wednesday's council decision to start planning and consenting work for a new district airport.
She said opponents were not against Onerahi airport staying where it was, but they did not want the NEST rescue helicopter base in the middle of the residential area.
Whangārei District Council (WDC) formally moved up a gear with planning and consenting work to facilitate a potential Onerahi airport shift. At its council meeting, it unanimously decided to accept a new 23-page consultants' report on the airport consenting strategy.
The report urges WDC to start as soon as possible on the huge amount of work needed to get a new airport off the ground. In particular it urges this in order to protect prospective airport land and its airspace. This would be done via designating the land for that use through Notices of Requirement (NoRs), a special Resource Management Act (RMA) planning tool.
Formal Private Plan change work for the proposed surrounding airport precinct needed to follow that, the Beca report said.
Whangārei mayor Sheryl Mai said the three potential sites identified at Ruatangata and One Tree Point had been arrived at after rigorous analysis.
Opponents of Northland Rescue Helicopters moving to Onerahi say a question mark still hangs over the Onerahi airport's future. Photo / Tania Whyte
This included universally looking at each of the council's 27 longlisted sites through the lenses of relevant planning issues and requirements along with sites' consentability, engineering feasibility and site accessibility.
"The volume of work to date is phenomenal," Mai said.
Lower Port Road was rejected as a site because of its being reclaimed, and surrounding hills.
She said it was important people realised the decision was about moving forward with the huge amount of consenting work required, rather than about the airport moving from or staying at Onerahi - which may or may not happen.
Mai was one of three WDC politicians at the aviation-themed council meeting formally appointed to a new Onerahi airport noise committee. Its 2014 committee predecessor had just one WDC politician.
The new noise committee was set up because of the same community noise concerns that led to its original establishment - loud opposition to the rescue helicopters shifting from Kensington to Onerahi. In 2014, this opposition led NEST to abandon the planned shift.
Noise opposition died down after the 2014 change of tack.
On Wednesday, the district council appointed councillor Phil Halse to chair the reincarnated airport noise committee.
This angered Onerahi helicopter shift opponents who want an independent committee chair, as was the case when the committee operated in the past.
"How can a Whangārei District Council councillor chair the committee, when the council has already voted to support the shift," Doherty said.
Cr Tricia Cutforth is the third politician appointed to the new committee, which has been set up for the current council's 2019-2022 term. This term is already about two-thirds finished, ending in seven months with the October local government elections. Mai and Cutforth will not be standing in the next elections.
The council did not reveal the process used for the politicians' appointment.
Community members will also become part of the new noise management committee.
WDC manager district development Tony Collins said three community members would be taken to a future council meeting for appointment to the committee.
NEST will build a new helicopter pad at the airport. There will be no WDC lease charges for the space used.
WDC's memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NEST is for a 10-year council Onerahi airport lease, renewable for a further decade.
Under the MOU an existing building on WDC's Onerahi airport land will be sold to NEST for one dollar. The trust would sell the buildings at its current Kensington Park facility to WDC for one dollar.
WDC in November voted to support NEST shifting to coastal Onerahi airport, amidst vociferous central city community opposition to noise from its current Kensington base and that site's ground lease expiring in May next year.
