Present Shelly Bay plan a missed opportunity

In the heated debate about Shelly Bay and the scale of development, people have made valid points regarding the inadequacy of the road upgrade, should development proceed.

Shelly Bay to Scorching Bay is one of the most important and well-loved sections of the Great Harbour Way; one of the most important recreational spaces in Wellington. The proposed heritage park at the north end of the peninsula will make it an even more attractive destination.

If hundreds more cars and trucks will use it daily, then walkers and cyclists need substantially better protection.

How can the council accept a 6-metrewide road with 1.5m of pedestrian space when its specialist report recommended a 14m-wide road and 8m walk-bike path? Maybe parts could be one-way for motorised traffic.

NZTA’s announcement this month to support the seaward Petone-Ngauranga section means Wellington’s 72km Great Harbour Way will become a magnet for commuting and tourism.

The current Shelly Bay plan could diminish and perhaps even sacrifice that opportunity. The council has invested in appropriate pathway provision elsewhere, such as Evans Bay and Oriental Bay. It seems ironic and shortsighted that on this particularly attractive section the council is not staunchly requiring compliance from developers. Graeme Hall, chairman, Great Harbour Way/Te Aranui o Poneke Trust

Sir Peter Jackson is right to suggest that: ‘‘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.’’

The term ‘‘Soviet-style apartments’’ is apt. New Zealand’s many examples turn out to be dowdy, unattractive, density housing projects. Swaths of unattractive state housing suburbs, dull clusters of OYO housing, inner-city masses of council and private incongruous higherrise apartments, bland lower-rise apartment groupings. A notion propagated that families will enjoy living in small, crowded units.

Any home buyer’s purchase will be expensive, while developers enjoy building costs moderated by economies of scale. What is being created is a lower standard of living, dictated by misconceived social engineering, suppressing the aspirations of ordinary people to better themselves. In time, people wonder why they want to live in poorly contrived, cheapened environments, which do not engender pride of ownership.

Mayor Justin Lester zealously backs expensive quixotic projects. Painting airport frontage, rather than use existing flagpoles? Spending millions on cyclelanes that diligent observers can see too few use. Will Shelly Bay be desirable? Giles Crisp, Wellington

Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust trustee Neville Baker asserts iwi’s right to do what they like with their land (‘Our land, our decision’, April 23).

Three things about that. First, they have sold the land already to the developer so they are now like the rest of us, able to have input to any consultation that occurs about the future of Shelly Bay.

Second, it fits with how they came to sell the land in the first place – contrary to the will of their own beneficiaries, achieved because the trust board subdivided it into ‘‘not significant’’ parcels so the board could get around the majority’s wishes.

Third, in a general sense none of us can do what we like with our land – we are all subject to resource management, town planning, and other numerous legal restrictions. That is what the developer has already found out as he tried to push the boundaries of acceptability.

Sir Peter Jackson is simply pointing out that part of the picture is suitable infrastructure and that serious questions need to be asked about the quality of analysis and advice so far.

Graeme Buchanan, Karaka Bays

Neville Baker says the land at Shelly Bay belongs to iwi and they have every right to develop it as they want. Big words, Neville Baker, but you’re horribly wrong. And on the other hand, are you expecting the ratepayers of Wellington to fund the millions and millions of dollars for roading, sewerage and basic infrastructure just for a money-making iwi development?

And as for doing whatever iwi like with the land, are Ma¯ ori above the Wellington City Council bylaws, some of which stem directly from government law?

Robin Watt, Miramar

Alert to fiasco

Congratulations to our regional councillors for solving the bus network fiasco they created.

The full-page ad on Saturday states: ‘‘If your bus isn’t arriving an alert will.’’ Problem solved.

Metlink blames the lack of available drivers when the real problem is the council’s creation of a nonsensical hubbased network and divvying services between multiple operators.

An alternative to the alert solution should come via the October local body elections.

Simon Louisson, Seatoun

Punishing go-getters

The capital gains tax was never about fairness. It was a mechanism to attempt to create equality by taxing those who had striven to better themselves to subsidise those who chose not to.

If it was about fairness, then all capital gains on property, even the family home, would be taxed. But even then the motive is questionable.

There is nothing ‘‘immoral’’ about working hard, seeking opportunities and forgoing luxuries to get ahead. Why try to punish the go-getters who put hard work and effort before a frivolous lifestyle. This is nonsensical and proven to be by those in Parliament with a few clues.

Brendon Wood, Karori

Core services down drain

A recent afternoon deluge over Wellington saw many of the CBD’s stormwater drains backing up in a scene reminiscent of Third World monsoonal Asia.

Previously this wouldn’t have been the case but Wellington City council (WCC) seems no longer to be in the business of maintaining core civic infrastructure. WCC now lacks sufficient in-house technical expertise. Instead, key tasks are contracted out, overseen by the new council workforce, bean counters and procurement managers, 10-a-penny. To get work, contractors undercut each other in a race to the bottom, reducing wages, staff, competence and, ultimately, the level of their activity.

WCC investment in key infrastructure like stormwater drainage systems has been dispensed with so profits can be maintained instead. There’s no long-term planning, with WCC accountants concerned only with the current bottom line.

When the essential infrastructure has inevitably been run down and is broken, we’ll go back to a town clerk, proper council-run services and planning, rather than the quick-fix corporate model with an overpaid CE.

This means the public picking up the tab. When it’s all fixed and First World again, some bright spark with no sense of history will come along and think it a great idea to get the private sector involved again.

Mike Batson, Mt Victoria