Mayor rejects Shelly Bay critic
The gloves are off in the fight over Wellington’s Shelly Bay development, with one of the country’s most famous residents dragging the fight into the public arena.
Sir Peter Jackson posted a series of emails between himself and Wellington mayor Justin Lester to his public Facebook page, which is liked by more than 2 million people.
In the email and accompanying statement, the filmmaker took aim at Lester and the Wellington City Council (WCC) for its handling of the controversial development.
‘‘The WCC are doing anything they can to assist a private developer which plans to dump a lot of Soviet-style apartment blocks on a beautiful part of Wellington’s coastline,’’ Jackson said.
The fight was ‘‘only to get more ugly’’, Jackson claimed.
However, Lester wasn’t taking Jackson’s barbs lying down, inviting the film-maker to publicly debate the project ‘‘in an open and transparent way’’ in front of Wellingtonians.
‘‘No single individual owns the peninsula. While everyone had a right to have a say, we listen to each voice equally. The iwi, who are the landowners, also have a natural right to try and do something with their land,’’ Lester said.
The Wellington Company (TWC), along with the iwi, has long been planning the development which would see hundreds of new homes built alongside an aged care facility and a boutique hotel. Jackson once had plans for a movie museum at Shelly Bay but these later found a more concrete footing in a joint project with WCC in the central city. However, that $180 million project was pulled in August 2018 when Jackson’s company, The Movie Museum Ltd, and the council jointly announced the ‘‘mutually-agreed parting of the ways’’ for the venture.
Since then, Jackson has been upfront with his feelings about the council. In his latest attack, he queried roading and infrastructure costs at Shelly Bay and called into question the council and Lester’s leadership.
‘‘It has been alleged the conduct of some WCC officers might be reminiscent of the unsavoury political practices normally found in countries like Albania (and that’s with apologies to Albania),’’ Jackson said.
In response, Lester said claims roading plans and costs had been changed secretly were incorrect.
‘‘We consulted on this with the public and we had 3000 submissions of which Sir Peter was one submitter. That’s all been dealt with in an open and transparent way.’’
His sentiments were echoed by development director Earl Hopepearson who said Jackson’s letter was ‘‘dangerously factually incorrect’’. Hope-pearson, who has been contracted by TWC, said he was confident all relevant figures had been prepared by engineers and quantity surveyors, and had been independently verified.
On his Facebook page, Jackson promised there was more to come from him on the subject.’’