Transit drives on with appeal

Transit NZ is forging ahead today with legal action against the development of a key Auckland growth zone, despite judicial criticism of a similar challenge in Southland.

It is due to open an appeal in the Environment Court against a Papakura District Council scheme change providing for about 1400 homes on the Hingaia Peninsula beside the Southern Motorway.

Transit has allowed an initial 550 sections to be developed on a no-prejudice basis but opposes more growth until the Papakura motorway interchange - a notorious accident spot - can be upgraded.

But no such project is in Transit's draft 10-year highways plan, even though Hingaia is one of just a handful of zones earmarked in the Auckland growth strategy for "greenfields" development to help to absorb a doubling of the region's population by 2050.

The Auckland Regional Council has extended the metropolitan urban limit to include 276ha of the peninsula, and Papakura Mayor John Robertson is annoyed Transit did not indicate concern about possible development effects earlier.

This week's appeal will be heard by a panel headed by Judge Jeff Smith, who in a decision last month sternly criticised Transit's opposition to a residential subdivision of 32 lots of land at Colac Bay on a scenic route west of Invercargill.

Transit wanted the developer, Foveaux Estate, to pay about $150,000 to create a new intersection with State Highway 99.

But the court rejected its appeal, noting that Transit was seeking roading improvements of a higher standard than it would have undertaken of its own accord to overcome safety deficiencies at an existing intersection.

Transit is playing down the wider significance of the decision, which it insists was specific to Colac Bay, and is still deciding whether to challenge it in the High Court.

Chief executive Rick van Barneveld said some local authorities seemed too ready to approve projects which created irreversible problems, in their eagerness "to attract development at any cost".

Mr Robertson said his council had recently widened Beach Rd by the motorway to cope with increasing traffic, but had been unable to get Transit to discuss its concerns.

Rodney District Mayor John Law believed the decision had direct implications for his fast-growing area.


Road ructions

* Transit NZ will ask the Environment Court to restrict a "greenfield" development in South Auckland until a formula can be reached for improving its Papakura motorway interchange.

* Opponents are applauding a decision last month in which the court rejected Transit's bid to make a Southland property company pay for a new intersection near a proposed subdivision.

* The court expressed "significant concern" at such an attempt to overcome existing deficiencies in the state highway network.