Baggins, dragons and Fellowship of the Bay

This column is largely concerned with the Bay of Shelly, and from its words a reader may discover much of its character and a little of its history. Many years ago, when Whataitai the taniwha swam in the harbour and the buses all ran on time, the beautiful Bay of Shelly was inhabited by peaceable natives.

But then the Shire of Wellington was settled, and the natives were sent away to less salubrious places. Wellingtonians are very like humans except their skin is windblown, and their public buildings end up costing thrice as much as they predict. The shire needed defending, so officers’ messes and airmen’s accommodation were built to make the Bay of Shelly an air force base. The only thing they forgot were the planes.

The air force base fell into disrepair and the land was given back to its original owners. ‘‘It should be public land,’’ said the wealthy inhabitants of the shire, as they always seem to do when land is given back to the original owners.

But the iwi owners faced financial challenges so needed to use the land to earn some gold pieces.

They formed a Fellowship of the Bay, known as the Settlement Trust. To help them, they formed an alliance with a business dragon called Cassels, whom some saw as a friendly ally and others as a villain. The owners tried to get their own people to approve the plan, but they failed. However, some magic appeared to be performed, and the land was sold.

Luckily for the iwi owners, a kingdom of SHA (Special Housing Areas) had been created by John the Banker so castles could be built in this kingdom without the Desolation of the District Plan. Cassels and his settlement friends wanted to build beautiful dwellings in the Kingdom of SHA based on the Shire of Sausalito. Councillors of the Shire of Wellington were delighted, including mayor Justo Baggins, a distant relative of Frodo and Bilbo.

But in the hills behind lived another dragon, Sirpeat, who owned much of the peninsula and who had accrued great wealth, much of it due to his creative brilliance and some due to generous tax subsidies from John the

Banker and Jacinda the Starstruck.

‘‘You shall not pass,’’ he roared to the developers. ‘‘I have seen the plans for the Two Hundred Towers. They contravene the District Plan and they are ugly.’’ Yes, he who created the massive bird that hangs at the airport found them ugly. ‘‘The Bay of Shelly is a taonga that should be available to all the workers of the shire of Miramar and their families,’’ said Sirpeat. Strictly speaking, there are no workers in Miramar, just full-time independent contractors who work statutory holidays.

Some local residents agreed. ‘‘These are just houses for the rich,’’ they complained. Yet even though the Bay of Shelly development would contravene a normal district plan, even though a successful legal appeal was made by local residents, who were given a surprisingly large donation that no-one could trace, the Bay of Shelly development could still go ahead. ‘‘Who is going to pay for the roads and infrastructure for the Bay of Shelly?’’ asked Sirpeat, breathing fire. ‘‘It will be the poor residents of the shire who subsidise the millionaires who live there.’’

Sirpeat was against residents subsidising millionaires – though millionaires in the film industry seemed to be a different matter. But he had a point. Could the Shire of Wellington face a cost blowout of town hall/film museum/ convention centre proportions?

‘‘Who is going to pay for the roads and infrastructure for the Bay of Shelly?’’ asked Sirpeat, breathing fire.

Mayor Justo Baggins didn’t think so and set off on a quest to smooth things over. He walked on his hairy feet from his office by the unused town hall, past deserted Civic Square, past the site of the expensive new convention centre, over the rainbow pedestrian crossing, down the Island Bay Cycleway where local residents still haven’t learned to park their cars, and around the coast to the Bay of Shelly.

He wanted to meet with Sirpeat and assure him the buildings would be pretty, that the iwi were entitled to develop the area, and that the cost of the supporting infrastructure wouldn’t be too high. But he found Sirpeat’s castle doors firmly shut. This is a very long story, and I have a feeling it has only just begun. To relate what happens next would be an arduous task similar to sitting through all three Hobbit movies.

But the ending is certain. For decades the arguments continued, and when the Bay of Shelly was finally developed, Tangaroa, god of the sea, was angry. ‘‘A plague on your tacky development,’’ he roared. ‘‘A plague on bashing iwi trying to make an honest buck. A plague on making ratepayers build roads for the wealthy.’’

Sick of the bickering, Tangaroa, with the help of motorists and dairy farmers, rose up over the next 100 years and reclaimed Shelly Bay for himself. That is why it will forever remain under water – as Tangaroa’s salutary lesson to us all.