KEY POINTS:
More than 400 households and 150 businesses face displacement or disruption in a new plan to improve traffic and public transport links between Auckland and Manukau cities.
Although exact property impacts are still being worked through, the Auckland City Council is sending letters to residents and businesses alerting
them in general terms to the fact that the $1.5 billion scheme is heading towards political approval.
A consultants' report due to be considered on Wednesday by the council's transport and urban linkages committee estimates that 566 properties will have to be bought - whether in part or outright - for roads to be widened and bus lanes to be installed under the 15-year scheme.
These will include 383 in Auckland City, of which 257 are residential and 126 commercial. Another 183 properties - 150 residential and 33 commercial - would be needed in Manukau.
Although officials are not yet identifying the properties publicly, they acknowledge that a large number will be needed for widening the eastern side of Mt Wellington Highway to 46m in places, and for building a new road from there to Glen Innes.
The diversion of two of the Panmure roundabout's six feeder roads to turn it into a signalised intersection will also squeeze out properties, as will the construction of a viaduct behind the Pakuranga shopping centre and the widening of Ti Rakau Rd on the Manukau side of the traffic-bottlenecked Tamaki River.
Property acquisition is expected to gobble up about $300 million of the $1.5 billion cost of the project and the Auckland council has disclosed that it has already spent $50 million buying eight commercial sites north of Mt Wellington Highway.
Despite the number of homes likely to be affected, the scheme pales against the 1200 expected to have been bulldozed for its unpopular predecessor, the aborted $3.9 billion Eastern Motorway and associated roadworks along a 27km route from Manukau to downtown Auckland via Hobson Bay.
The scheme's consultants say most of the property purchases now envisaged are required either directly or indirectly because of a need to implement regional passenger transport and cycling network plans.
These would, in turn, enable "the realisation of the regional growth strategy through the intensification of the identified growth nodes".
Auckland City transport general manager Stephen Rainbow said the letters were being sent to property-owners as a courtesy pending political consideration of the scheme, meaning nothing was definite yet.
He said the council was "committed to the highest level of engagement with the public".
What's Needed
* The transport scheme will take 15 years to complete.
* 566 properties will have to be bought for roads to be widened and bus lanes to be installed.
* 383 will have to be bought in Auckland City - 257 are residential and 126 commercial.
* Another 183 properties - 150 residential and 33 commercial - will be needed in Manukau.
