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Supermarket giant Foodstuffs has lodged new planning applications for its Pak'nSave on the North Shore on a fully notified basis, saying it wants maximum community involvement in the project.
The new deal will also allow all dissenting parties to object to the new store, an outlet which could generate sales of more than $70 million a year.
The supermarket, finished two years ago, must stay shut because its resource consent was found to be invalid.
So Foodstuffs has decided to go back to the first stage of the planning process and re-lodge its application on a public basis.
Murray Jordan, general manager of property development, said the supermarket co-operative had decided against applying on a limited notification basis.
"We have asked the councils to publicly notify the application," Jordan said.
"We have decided the quickest way to move forward is to start the consent process all over again and let the community have its say by applying for a fully notified application. We have had tremendous support from the North Shore community and every week we receive calls from people wanting to know when the store is going to open. We are working as hard as we can to open the store for our customers."
So on June 29, Foodstuffs lodged a new application with North Shore City Council and the Auckland Regional Council and hopes the applications will be notified next month.
Foodstuffs needs ARC consent because it discovered site contamination during construction two years ago. A small portion of the land was found to be contaminated with chemicals from drycleaning and printing ink processes. The materials had migrated to the site from adjoining areas.
Foodstuffs then launched a monitoring programme, providing regular data to the ARC.
In 2005, the supermarket's consent was ruled invalid in the High Court when Justice David Baragwanath found the North Shore City Council had erred in not awaiting the results of full investigations by Transit NZ of the effects of the new store.
Justice Baragwanath found the adverse effects of the supermarket "may well be more than minor" and ruled in favour of lobby group Northcote Mainstreet and Progressive, owner of the Foodtown, Woolworths and Countdown supermarket chains.
Foodstuffs prepared a case for the Court of Appeal but ditched that last winter and instead went back to the city council.
Last December, the council decided to process a new resource consent application on a limited notification basis which meant only the immediate neighbours would have a change to object. Progressive would have been locked out of that process.
