City needs a commercial airport at Whenuapai, says Harvey

Waitakere City's Mayor has it all to win - and lose - with his brainchild, the proposed Whenuapai Airport. BOB HARVEY tells the Herald why it's not just pie in the sky.

DOES AUCKLAND NEED ANOTHER AIRPORT?

Auckland already has a second airport - at Whenuapai. You could land a flight there today and have baggage handling, arrivals and Customs.

It needs to continue, as a civilian airport, because, while Auckland International has the capacity, how are people going to get to and from it?

The region does not have the roading and public transport network to service the airport. Some 400,000 people already live closer to Whenuapai than Mangere; populations are going to double in the next 30 years or so, and Mangere is proposing to treble its traffic from 8 million passengers a year to about 24 million.

Millions of dollars will be needed to upgrade the transport infrastructure near the airport. Meanwhile, the region is going to spend billions on unclogging the roads. Are we going to do that just to clog it up again with traffic to and from Mangere?

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES?

Keeping Whenuapai operating as a commuter airport with some limited international capacity, such as eastern Australia and the Pacific Islands, will provide $341 million in transport benefits to the region.

Furthermore, it's not just about the need for an airport. The loss of Defence expenditure in the northwest region will cost $250 million a year and 1600 jobs.

One of the biggest problems facing this sector is the need to create jobs locally. At the moment, 60 per cent of Waitakere's population and 50 per cent of North Shore's cross the isthmus to employment regions in the centre and south. Employment in the northwest will divert at least some of that traffic from the motorways.

ARE THERE BETTER SUGGESTIONS FOR THE BASE'S FUTURE USE?

Opponents say it could become a business park. They do not say why or when companies will relocate there, nor who would finance the development. Moreover, what would you do with 46,000 truckloads of concrete you would have to remove - and who would pay to remove it and dispose of it?

Whenuapai is not currently attractive as a business park and you have to have a reason for going there. If it's not an airport, what advantage does it have? Indeed, if it's not an airport, it's just a piece of real estate outside the planned growth area with expensive problems to remediate.

WILL THE RATEPAYERS SUFFER?

Ratepayers will not pay a penny. [Infrastructure investor] Infratil will provide all the capital to develop the airport. This is private money.

Infratil will offer the council a 33 per cent share option at no cost. The authority can sit on this, sell it, or take it up. So the worst-case scenario is it costs the ratepayer nothing and the best case is that we acquire a profitable security on behalf of the ratepayers. Waitakere City Council has also negotiated the right to share the rights and benefits with Rodney and North Shore.

WHAT ASSURANCES CAN YOU OFFER THOSE OPPOSED TO THE AIRPORT PROPOSAL?

The proposal will be subject to the normal robust and objective impact assessments.

The airport already exists, with 22,000 movements a year. The residents around Whenuapai, Herald Island and the western North Shore have bought there knowing this airport exists. It has not been a barrier to investment. People buy in the vicinity knowing it is there.

Right next to Wellington Airport, on its eastern side, million-dollar houses are being built even though Wellington takes bigger planes and more of them than are proposed for Whenuapai.

It is a proven fact that people tune out noises with which they are familiar - people living next to railways can't tell you when the next train is due or the last one passed. For the same reason, people living in the vicinity of Whenuapai are surprised to learn the number of aircraft flying over them.