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Environmental group Mahurangi Action is crying foul over private plan changes by developers, which it says risk undermining years of public consultation over the Warkworth Structure Plan.
In a letter to Auckland Council, Mahurangi Action points out that it initiated the Warkworth Town Hall
Talk series three years ago to stimulate greater public engagement on the structure plan, which outlines how future urban areas around Warkworth should develop and what infrastructure will be required to service that development.
But Mahurangi Action secretary Cimino Cole says developers are now pre-empting that process by submitting plan change requests that are contrary to the structure plan.
Mr Cole cites Plan Change 25 (PC25) – a publically notified plan change by developer Turnstone Capital, which seeks to rezone future urban-zoned land in Warkworth North – known as Stubbs Farm.
“My understanding is it calls for more residential and less commercial or industrial land. But one of the goals of the structure plan is to ensure that employment grew with the town, so we weren’t just another dormitory town for Auckland,” he says.
Mr Cole says the whole point of the structure plan is to counter the ad-hoc development that is occurring in Warkworth as a result of developer-initiated private plan changes. Moreover, these plan changes are driven by the desire for commercial gain, rather than to support good town planning.
“It is difficult to see how the outcome of these current plan change applications will result in anything other than that which has materialised in the recent past – disconnected developments with little regard to the immediate and wider context,” he says.
Mr Cole says the problem has arisen because Council has decided to respond to private plan change applications rather than adhere to its previously stated intention to initiate plan changes itself based on the structure plan.
But Council principal planner Ryan Bradley has moved to quell Mahurangi Action’s concerns.
Mr Bradley says merely making a plan change request does not give a lot of power to the applicant. Such applications are evaluated by a Council officer, who prepares a report and recommendations.
These are then presented to independent commissioners who make a final decision on the request.
He says he understands Mr Cole’s concern in relation to PC25 saying the point he raises is one that Council makes in its own submission on the plan change.
“We are wanting to defend the integrity of the Warkworth Structure Plan as we go through the private plan change process,” he says.
Mr Bradley says the Resource Management Act provides only limited grounds for Council to reject private plan changes.
He adds that if Council were to pursue its own plan changes at the same time as the private ones, it would lead to a confusing process with potentially different outcomes for the same piece of land.
“The public would need to be across all the processes and make submissions on each one if they wanted to be heard,” he says.
Meanwhile, Turnstone Capital CEO Jamie Peters has defended Turnstone’s private plan change saying the Turnstone submission responds to the structure plan for Warkworth, including the technical reports that support it.
He says the plan itself acknowledges that it will change and be altered over time. For example, it may require alteration depending on the outcome of proposed roading projects around Warkworth.
