NZTA’s foreshore bombshell

Proposed east-west link would cut through just-finished, $30m Onehunga enhancement

A$30 million, 8-month-old waterfront development is set to be torpedoed by a motorway connection.

The Onehunga foreshore transformation includes new beaches, a boat ramp and turning bay and a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. Plans were also in place to develop the port into a “waterfront village” with restaurants and apartments, similar to Wynyard Quarter on the Auckland Viaduct.

The foreshore was promoted by the Onehunga community since the 1970s and is a joint project between NZTA and the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board.

But the NZTA wants to bulldoze through what it has created with a 5.5km road, which will provide a connection between Auckland’s main route to the airport, the Southwestern Motorway, and the Southern Motorway.

Set to be completed within a decade, the road is the NZTA’s preferred option out of six for the $1.85 billion EastWest project.

The area is experiencing intense growth with Onehunga and Penrose dubbed “the industrial and manufacturing engine room of the economy”.

NZTA says the East-West project will improve access to the rail freight hub at Southdown and improve travel times for freight, motorists and public transport users.

Auckland highways mana- ger Brett Gliddon said the design enabled development “by separating local and motorway traffic”.

It also provided a direct local road access between the wharf, the town centre and the rail station and the agency was working closely with Auckland Council and Panuku Development Auckland, which manages land and buildings the council owns, to integrate transport and urban design, Gliddon said.

Onehunga Business Association manager Amanda Kinzett said a 4m high wall in front of the historic Landing Hotel and other businesses would cut them off from access, the foreshore and Onehunga. “The port will be unusable. This is unacceptable to the community.”

Editor of the Transport Blog, Matt Lowrie, said: “One big one is the impact the project will have on the plans by Panuku Development Auckland which is focusing on redeveloping the area. The massive foreshore road will essentially turn the old port into an island and suppress the ability to better develop the local area.”

Lowrie said the project contradicted the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement which said reclamation of land should generally be avoided in the coastal marine area.

In an update to council on the road’s environmental im- pact, the NZTA said it required significant use of natural resources as it involved reclamation along the northern edge of the Mangere Inlet and several ramps.

The briefing said it was also likely to involve significant earthworks for its 5.5km.

The area is home to a number of unique ecosystems and is a habitat for national and international migratory birds, with a number of previously locally extinct species which have re-established in the inlet.

The design for the project won’t be confirmed until the application is lodged with the Environmental Protection Authority in December. There is likely to be further changes during the Board of Inquiry process as the NZTA responds to 135 submissions it received.

This is unacceptable to the community.

Amanda Kinzett