Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray are seeking resource consent for a helipad at their Westmere property. Photo / Photosport
Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray are seeking resource consent for a helipad at their Westmere property. Photo / Photosport
Concerns by some people about Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray’s plans for a helipad at their Westmere property are “alarmist and unhelpful”, says their lawyer.
Summing up the couple’s resource consent application following four earlier days of robust public submissions, lawyer Chris Simmons today said itsatisfied the provisions of the Resource Management Act, was founded on rigorous expert assessment and included measures to manage the effects.
He said the applicants had undertaken comprehensive consultation over four years, including a one-year pause for further monitoring of the effects on bird life to ensure the application was of high quality.
On the first day of public hearings two weeks ago, Simmons said the application was for no more than two take-off and landing flights per day, up to 10 flights per month, occurring within a two-hour window on either side of low tide when birds were out feeding.
Anna Mowbray and Ali Williams' waterfront home in Westmere. Photo / Alex Burton
The application attracted 1400 submissions, of which more than 1300 were opposed.
Simmons today cautioned the three-member independent hearings panel about the approach by submitters, some of whom he claimed were “alarmist and unhelpful” and skewed by personal prejudices, including towards the couple and their public profile.
He said some submitters described the environment in idealistic, even hyperbolic terms, providing examples of the area being described as “a serene, undisturbed coastal environment” and a “public beach, which it clearly is not”.
“Some concerns expressed by submitters regarding potential aviation safety concerns are alarmist and unhelpful,” he said.
The lawyer also criticised some of the photographs shown by submitters, including some showing the couple’s children at the point below their property, and a photo by the Hawke Sea Scouts taken about 500m away from the proposed helipad.
“Unsubstantiated concerns should not outweigh expert evidence based on empirical data and/or robust modelling,” said Simmons, who urged the commissioners to adopt a pragmatic sieving and weighing of the evidence and the concerns raised by submitters.
Opponents of the helipad have said the couple’s Rawene Ave property, jutting out into the Waitematā Harbour, is a beautiful site that should be preserved and not used for operating helicopters.
Quiet Sky Waitematā – a community group set up to oppose private helicopters in residential Auckland – submitted that the effects on the birds, trees and amenity were more than minor, and the application must be declined.
The group’s lawyer, Gill Chappell, said Quiet Sky was deeply and genuinely concerned about the broad effects of helicopter activity on the environment.
Sea birds on the headland where Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray have thier home.
Urban Auckland, a group of architects and other professionals dedicated to a better built and natural environment for the past 25 years, also opposed the application.
Chair Julie Stout said Waiheke Island provided a lesson where 64 helipads had been granted consents in relatively low-density residential areas.
She said private use of helicopters in the built-up city was not in the public interest, saying Sydney and Melbourne did not allow private landing pads in residential areas.
Kitt Littlejohn got into a row with the Tree Council's Dr Mels Barton at the Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray (inset) helipad hearing. Photo / Michael Craig
Meanwhile, the panel chair, Kitt Littlejohn, has apologised to Tree Council secretary Dr Mels Barton for threatening to “get rid” of her on the last day of public hearings a fortnight ago.
Barton started her submission with photos alleging illegal removal, pruning, and thinning of protected trees on the couple’s headland property when Littlejohn interjected, saying that was not relevant.
“We have no evidence in front of us that there is any wrongdoing here. Even if it was, it is not relevant to the resource consent application. You don’t refuse resource consent applications because people have done something historically,” Littlejohn said.
When the row settled down, Barton said that helicopters would have a significant impact on tree health and stability.
Barton said she has been emailed a private apology from Littlejohn, which the Tree Council has acknowledged and accepted.
The commissioners will adjourn today to consider the application within 15 working days, but have the power to extend the deadline.
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