Waterview: the safe and sacrificed

L: John and Thelma Hanton. R: Maressa Tane. Photos / Christine Cornege

The Transport Agency has this week announced yet another route change for its $1.15 billion Waterview motorway project, the final link in Auckland's 48km western ring bypass.

It says the new 4.35km route, which will avoid much of Great North Rd and include 2.4km of three-lane twin tunnels, will require the removal of 160 fewer properties than up to 365 homes which would have been destroyed by a combined surface-tunnel option.

But the new route is likely to affect 27 houses along Hendon Ave in Owairaka which would have been untouched by the earlier plan, although the agency says only three will probably have to be removed from near the southern portal of tunnels due to be dug over four years from late 2011.

The tunnels will be bored by a "road header" machine similar to that used on the Northern Gateway toll road, mainly beneath Oakley Creek.

Although the Friends of Oakley Creek group remains concerned about potential impacts on the waterway, agency northern director Wayne McDonald says the tunnels will be dug deep enough not to harm its lower reaches although some modifications are likely through Alan Wood Reserve behind Hendon Ave.

The winners: John and Thelma Hanton

"Everyone's ecstatic," said Thelma Hanton of news that an amended route for the Waterview motorway would steer away from her home and more than a hundred others off Great North Rd.

"It would have been a bit of an upheaval to move when you are older," said the retired secretary yesterday, outside the home she has shared for 20 years with her husband, John.

Mrs Hanton said some of her neighbours were "terribly upset" when told in May they would have to leave their homes to make way for a combined surface-tunnel motorway after the Government ruled out a costlier and more extensive tunnelling proposal. Although confident the Transport Agency would have paid a fair price for her house, she had no idea where she and her husband would have gone, and nothing could have compensated them for the loss of a close-knit neighbourhood.

"We have got a lot a delightful neighbours, many of them Chinese - we help them out with the gardening and they pop around with dumplings."

Mr Hanton, a semi-retired maintenance contractor, said he had nothing against motorways as such but he could not see the sense in the agency's earlier plan to divert traffic to a temporary carriageway through his and other homes on the eastern side of Great North Rd to make way for "cut and cover" tunnels below.

Having put off maintenance jobs on his own home while waiting for the agency to buy it, he acknowledged that the latest route change meant he would have to take up his paint brush again to bring it back up to scratch.

The agency last week announced an amended route, which would include a continuous set of twin three-lane tunnels to the east of Great North Rd and mainly beneath Oakley Creek.

A neighbour of the couple, Ian Fuller, said he had considered taking early retirement from his security job for a move to Tauranga if the home he had built more than 30 years ago had to be bowled by the motorway. The route change meant he would prepare for a more orderly transition, and possibly a higher sale price for his home overlooking native bush above Oakley Creek, although he also admitted to a backlog of maintenance jobs put on hold by the motorway project.

The loser: Maressa Tane

Maressa Tane looked in vain in her letterbox yesterday for advice on whether her home for the past 10 years would have to make way for the amended Waterview motorway proposal.

The Hendon Ave house she shares with partner James Payne and their two grandchildren is close to the southern portals of twin motorway tunnels which are to extend 250m further south than expected through Owairaka's Alan Wood Reserve.

Ms Tane said the couple were relieved in May to learn their rented Housing New Zealand property would not be in the line of fire of a controversial proposal for a combined surface-tunnel motorway.

"I thought we were safe - they make me sick," she said yesterday.

She said she had been in regular contact with Housing NZ to find out what was in store for the property, and the corporation's advice was to keep checking her letterbox.

Although the Transport Agency says it door-knocked homes along Hendon Ave on Monday, before making a wider announcement of the route change, Ms Tane's letterbox remained empty yesterday.

An agency official said later that only part of the rear section of Ms Tane's property would be required for the project, and an associated change to a designated railway corridor through Alan Wood Reserve, but was at a loss to explain why she had yet to receive a letter.

Although Housing NZ says it will find alternative accommodation for all tenants displaced by the motorway, Mr Payne said his grandchildren - aged 2 and 5 - would miss playing soccer in the park if they had to move.

Further east along Hendon Ave, Mike Nicholson and Ariane Welsh were unclear whether the house they moved into a fortnight ago would be needed for the motorway.

Mr Nicholson, a chef, said they had moved from "a concrete jungle" in Dominion Rd to find some green space where their 6-year-old son Matthew could play but had not been told by their landlord about any motorway plans. The Transport Agency official said the couple's new home would not be needed for the project.