Container depot faces RMA process
Adeveloper hoping to gain consent for a supply chain depot in Te Puna to refurbish and store shipping containers has engaged a public relations agency to tell a positive story about the facility to sceptical locals.
Campaigners who oppose the plans remain unconvinced. Some are mightily disappointed with a process that has seen Western Bay of Plenty District Council staff obliged to inform the investors of resource management issues, while residents are left waiting to find out if they will be publicly notified and have any formal opportunity to be heard.
Te Puna Industrial spokesperson and ContainerCo managing director, Ken Harris, says the development site at 297 Te Puna Station Road would support the region’s fast-growing primary sector and exports in line with approvals set out in 2005.
Seventeen years ago, the Environment Court approved a private plan change moving the zoning from rural to industrial to enable the creation of Te Puna Business Park. Provisions of the plan change process included the need for mitigation measures to ensure a lower level of impact and adverse environmental effects on the surrounding area.
“All tenants including ContainerCo will comply with the consent requirements including noise, visual and landscape mitigation, building heights, stormwater and other environmental requirements,” Mr Harris says.
Opponents held a public meeting at Māramatanga Park on Wednesday 9th February, attended by approximately 95 people including various District Councillors as observers.
An organiser, Sarah Rice, says the Council has forwarded the developer all the correspondence that concerned residents had sent concerning the application.
“This breach of privacy is now being investigated by the Privacy Commission.
“The Container Co press release bears little resemblance to the minutes of the meeting they had with Council in March 2021, where they talked of container numbers averaging 15,000 per hectare and that the height limit of 9m was restrictive.
“The developer ‘cherry picks’ snippets that suit them from the Environmental Court ruling of 2005 in which Judge Smith ruled for this to be a site ‘more similar to rural than industrial’, which should make a positive contribution to the surrounding community.”
Sarah Rice says the public meeting raised concerns about scope creep, honesty, environmental and cultural impact, and a history of lack of compliance at the site.
“At Heartlands meetings, at Kaimai Forums, at Regional Council, we stand together to protect Te Puna from becoming an industrial suburb of Tauranga. A new Incorporated Society is being set up in order to deal with any legal battles that ensue,” she says.
Representatives of Pirirākau and Ngāti Taka both spoke in opposition, disputing that they have been consulted, and saying they would not give their blessing to consent.
Ken Harris says the 15,000 number is exponentially wrong and possibly a decimal point error as containers stacked three high would amount to a few hundred per hectare.
“The best place to keep containers is as close as possible for exporters. We are in a shipping crisis at the moment, with all sorts of freight delays and pressure,” he says.
The District Council’s manager for policy planning and regulatory services, Rachael Davie, says further comment is being sought on the application from other specialist agencies.
She says the statutory Resource Management Act process is being followed, to determine whether the application should be publicly notified or not.