KEY POINTS:
Officials are scrambling to make up an expected shortfall in money to pay for the transport interchange that anchors plans to make New Lynn a regional growth centre.
Waitakere City Council infrastructure chairman Derek Battersby said yesterday he was worried that funding was not secured to finish all
parts of the project.
"It would be a terrible for the west Auckland community if we get half the loaf - we need the full integrated rail and bus interchange."
He welcomed the Government's move to form a steering group for the project.
Part of its job is to look for ways around funding deficits and tell Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen and other ministers.
Four agencies involved are members under the chairmanship of former Papakura Mayor John Robertson, who was chairman of the Infrastructure Auckland funding agency when it was disbanded in 2004.
The bold plan for New Lynn includes sinking duplicated railway tracks beneath roads along a 1km trench through the town.
In December 2006, the Government agreed to pay $120 million, through Ontrack, and the city council $20 million to the trench.
Now the council is making provision for it, spending $147.7 million over three years on its part of the project, such as building two bridges over the trench to replace level crossings and a further three bridges and new roading for easing traffic growth ahead.
Land Transport NZ is likely to help pay for these.
But the council is worried that the interchange will be stripped down to a basic underground station.
Instead, it wants additional cover over the rail trench to give better amenities and improve pedestrian links.
Mr Battersby said the project would open the way for redevelopment of the town centre. But the council could not afford to upgrade public amenities to encourage use of public transport from its rates alone.
New Lynn was pitched at regional objectives for growth centres and transport.
The council applied through the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (Arta) for $19.83 million.
Although Arta was sympathetic, its parent agency, the Auckland Regional Council, reduced the sum to $12.55 million.
The city council still hopes to get a further $7 million-plus from the ARC. The ARC has offered to hear evidence of the need for a greater sum before finalising its own budget.
Mr Battersby said his council sought only a share of the $34 million that the ARC had been refunded by the Government from early duplication work on the Western rail line.
Waitakere is also is looking at joint ventures with developers, diverting money from some other projects and reaping more contributions from property developers.
