Tough talking over the Waitakeres

Retired planning tribunal judge Arnold Turner's speech wins applause from this audience at last night's protest meeting in Henderson. Picture / Richard Robinson

Waitakere landowners turned out in force to oppose a bill they say will erode their property rights.

Most of the crowd of more than 500 who packed the hall at Bruce McLaren Intermediate School in Henderson responded with loud applause to organisers' calls to get rid of the Waitakere Ranges National Heritage Area Bill.

But the meeting was not without disruptions.

Several supporters of the legislation reacted angrily to an announcement that the six speakers making presentations would not take questions from the floor.

Those who continued heckling were told they were trespassing and escorted from the building.

The meeting was organised by the Structure Plan Advocate Network (Span), a group of Waitakere landowners who fear the legislation would leave property owners struggling to get a resource consent for even minor developments on their land.

The bill's advocates, who include Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, say the legislation is needed to protect the environment and control any further development in the foothills of the Waitakere Ranges.

Earlier this week, Mr Harvey tried to stop the protest meeting by seeking a ministerial directive to shut it down.

He approached Education Minister Trevor Mallard, claiming that the intermediate school's principal, David Crickmer, was "a developer in his own right" and the school was "being hijacked for this purpose".

Last night's first speaker was retired planning tribunal judge Arnold Turner, whom Mr Harvey wrote to last week and accused of being "on the side of those who would chop it (the ranges) up like salami".

Mr Turner, who owns land at Huia, called the bill "fundamentally flawed", both in its application to private land and public land in the ranges.

"It's full of philosophy with little or no specifics of what may be done," he said.

He said the bill was not needed to protect the ranges because that was already covered under local body legislation.

"Nowhere does it assert that the district plans are inadequate for protecting the ranges."

He also objected to a clause stating that applications for resource consents must be considered "as if they were a matter of national importance".

National MP Nick Smith said the bill was another example of "fuzzy" legislation.

"The community is being asked to support something they have no idea about what it really means."

He said the bill made no distinction between public and private land.

Reform of the Resource Management Act, rather than legislation like the bill, was needed, he said.

John Edgar, president of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society, told the Herald before the meeting that Span was scaremongering by saying the bill eroded property rights.

He said it was "an absolute lie" to say that the legislation could stop property owners getting resource consents for minor developments such as garages and garden sheds.

"Under the district plan as it exists, you can do all those things," he said.

Mr Edgar said the real objection of Span members was that those with land in the Waitakere foothills would not be able to subdivide their land into plots smaller than 10 acres.

"When they say they are going to lose property rights, the property right they are going to lose is the right to keep on subdividing forever."

Surveys by councils in the Auckland region had shown 65 per cent to 85 per cent of people supported legislation to protect the ranges.

Mr Edgar said the bill was a way of preserving a rural lifestyle and the environment.

Waitakere city councillor Vanessa Neeson said the bill should only apply to public land and private landowners should be left to sign up voluntarily.

She said she had made a motion to the council to that effect.

Rodney Mayor John Law said Rodney district councillors, by a majority of 9-4, had indicated they would not support the bill.