The 12.2ha site owned by Tinex Group is one of three land titles that make up the Te Puna Business Park. Photo / Alisha Evans
The 12.2ha site owned by Tinex Group is one of three land titles that make up the Te Puna Business Park. Photo / Alisha Evans
Residents of a rural community are “enormously reassured” that consent for non-compliant industrial activity in their area has been declined, a group opposing the plan says.
Tinex Group applied for retrospective resource consent for non-compliant activity at its property on Te Puna Station Rd in the Te Hakao Valley.
The consent from the Western Bay of Plenty District Council was for the renovation of relocatable houses, storage of empty skip bins, portable fencing and building materials.
The business also wanted permission for swimming pool shell storage and storage of large earthmoving machinery tyres.
The activity was non-complaint because the required development and infrastructure were not in place before the activity began. The requirements that had not been met included wetland planting, acoustic bunding, landscape planting and stormwater ponds and management.
Submissions were sought on the consent application, with 194 received, and hearings were held in October.
Independent hearing commissioners James Whetu and Rob van Voorthuysen declined the application.
Alison Cowley of Priority Te Puna said members of the community were worried about industrial traffic from the Te Puna Business Park. Photo / Alisha Evans
The commissioners were not satisfied the effects of stormwater runoff on water quality and safety issues at the intersection of Te Puna Rd / Te Puna Station Rd and the site access were minor or less, according to their written decision.
The 12.2ha site owned by Tinex Group is one of three land titles that make up the Te Puna Business Park structure plan area. The business park is 26ha of land on Te Puna Station Rd and is zoned industrial under the Western Bay of Plenty District Plan.
Priority Te Puna spokeswoman Alison Cowley said they were enormously reassured that the structure plan requirements were being applied.
”We’re not celebrating, dancing around with champagne, it’s just thank goodness planning rules have been applied and upheld.
”People are feeling so uplifted that there is some way for them to have a voice,” she said.
”Nobody is anti-business, but they’re definitely concerned about the environment, the roading, the stormwater.”
Priority Te Puna, an incorporated society, was formed in March last year by locals concerned about the industrial activity at Te Puna Business Park and its local impact.
”People are genuinely worried about traffic safety. The number of accidents we see is just enormous,” Cowley said.
A car ended up upside down after a crash at the Te Puna Rd/Te Puna Station Rd intersection last week, she said.
There were also lots of incidents where vehicles crossed the intersection into oncoming traffic, Cowley said.
The Te Hakao Valley is also culturally significant to mana whenua because the Pirirakau people occupied the Pukewhanake Pā at its headland and the wetland was once an important food source for them.
In the 1940s extensive earthworks occurred in the valley and the Minden Stream was diverted, draining the wetland that meets the Wairoa River, for pastoral land.
An aerial view of the Tinex site outlined in yellow.
Asked what the declined resource consent meant for the applicant, council environmental consents manager Natasha Ryburn said the industrial activity must cease.
The council has also issued four abatement notices to Tinex Group because the required infrastructure was not in place.
Tinex Group appealed this, which was heard through the Environment Court in August. Ryburn said the council was still waiting for the court’s decision.
”The outcome of this will determine when the activities must cease.”
The court was advised of the decision to decline the resource consent, she said.
”There are a couple of options available to the applicant at this point – appeal the resource consent decision or push forward with the more substantive consent application.”
Tinex Group has been approached for comment.
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