Motorway go-slow leaves homeowners' lives on hold

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Hundreds of residents will not know until next year whether their homes will be bulldozed or saved from scaled-back plans for the eastern highway.

As many as 1200 homeowners have been asked to put their lives on hold after further delays by Auckland City and Manukau councils to come up with the final route and scale of one of the biggest projects undertaken in New Zealand.

Auckland City mayor John Banks and Manukau mayor Sir Barry Curtis last week wrote to affected homeowners to outline which routes have been confirmed, abandoned or were still being investigated and to keep them informed on the next stage in the process.

The mayors guaranteed that homeowners would be fairly compensated but said their councils would not be in a position to buy properties until scaled-back plans for the highway were known. The councils' consultants, Opus, are due to present scaled-back options on August 25.

The councils are confident of reducing the impact on residents and reducing an estimated $1.2 billion bill for property purchases.

The chairman of the eastern transport corridor steering committee, Greg McKeown, said the Opus options would only be preliminary and potentially affected homeowners would not know if their homes would be needed until after the October local body elections.

The final route, scale of the project and number of affected properties is not expected to be known until next year, more than 12 months after an earlier timetable to firm up affected properties.

Meanwhile, Bob Demler, a member of Christine Fletcher's campaign team, has accused Auckland City of "fast-tracking" a protection order for part of the eastern highway.

The council's transport committee has recommended extending the designation from Tamaki Drive to Morrin Rd by 10 years on the grounds that substantial progress has been made on the eastern highway. The designation is due to expire on November 15.

Mr Demler said the decision flew in the face of an Environment Court ruling that the council had to seek a new designation, likely to have been publicly notified.

The council manager of transport planning, Janine Bell, said the council was within its rights to extend the designation but that did not allow the council to build anything on the route.