Contact: homebushresidents@gmail.com
Homebush Road Residents Group
Help us save the Ngauranga green gateway to Wellington.
District plan sham - Capital Times (22.04.09)
On 5 January 2006, Capital Times carried an article headed “District Plan a sham says watchdog”. This quoted Di Buchan, spokesperson for the Wellington Civic Trust who said that the Wellington City Council’s District Plan is meaningless as, “There’s no assurance at all that the public can rely on the Plan to protect its interests, protect the environment and the things we value, and the public consultation process it was founded on.” Nothing has changed in over three years. A current development scheme of Prime Property Group is destined to turn the city’s gateway, the Ngauranga Gorge, into a housing development.
The strategy for this “get rich” scheme is really quite simple. First, buy over 14 hectares of land that is protected under the District Plan. This can be done cheaply because Open Space B zoning demands stewardship and prevents development. A degree of deception then creeps in, as just about everyone in Wellington believed in the council’s commitment to the protective zoning and supporting strategic planning documents which express a commitment to protecting an important ecological corridor between the coastal escarpment and the outer town belt. The next step is to slip a plan change through for a small subdivision as there is a precedent where a subdivision built on previously reserved land was legitimised as a “minor anomaly” (Plan Change 34). Once the first subdivisional bite has been taken, the process is empowered to keep going with further applications using the first success as a precedent. In time, the “reserve” hillside from below Homebush Park to beyond the Ngauranga rail bridge will be covered in housing.
There are numerous subtleties that this letter doesn’t cover. However, based on past performance, the Wellington City Council will once again show a lack of resolve to protect its special features, unlike other regional authorities that aggressively defend their district plans.
Peter Henderson, Khandallah