Long haul: Court to hear airport runway case
THE fate of Wellington’s proposed runway extension will be decided by the Environment Court, with airport bosses opting not to roll the dice on a board of inquiry.
The airport company informed city councillors yesterday of its intention, which will mean a longer wait for resource consent but carries less risk of the $300 million project going the way of the Basin Reserve flyover.
Airport general manager of communications Greg Thomas said a business case for the proposal to extend the southern end of the runway by 300 metres will be released in a week or two.
The public will be given between four and six weeks to provide feedback on the plans before an application for resource consent is lodged in late December.
Having a Government-appointed board of inquiry hear the application would force a decision within nine months, whereas the Environment Court route would take between 12 and 15 months, Thomas said.
But the Environment Court would provide more opportunity to pause and rethink certain aspects of the extension if necessary, which would not necessarily be the case with a board of inquiry.
‘‘You’ve got a bit more time in the process to work through things.’’
The faster option of a board of inquiry ended up biting the New Zealand Transport Agency in June last year when the board declined resource consent for the two-lane highway flyover it wanted to build north of the Basin Reserve. That decision was upheld by the High Court in July this year, forcing the project to be abandoned.
Thomas said yesterday that the flyover’s fate did not influence the airport’s decision to avoid a board of inquiry. Rather, the airport believed the Environment Court would provide a more ‘‘open and transparent’’ process that allowed more people to have their say.
The runway business case would include a cost-benefit analysis, an assessment of how the surrounding ecology and surfing conditions would be affected, the visual impact it would have on the landscape and how much noisier the airport could be with larger planes landing there.
An economic assessment in September last year found the extension would open up the possibility of direct flights from Wellington to Los Angeles and Dubai, as well as Asia, injecting as much as $684m into the local economy by 2060.
Development of the extension’s consent application was still within its $5.9m budget, Thomas said.