Questions remain about precedent-setting alleyway closure in Hastings

The troubled alleyway connecting Frederick St West and Manuka St in Mahora, which is set to be closed off. Photo / Warren Buckland

A Hastings resident says a potentially precedent-setting process to permanently block off a crime-riddled alleyway directly behind her home is taking too long.

The 83-metre-long alleyway in the suburb of Mahora runs between homes and was originally opened to help children walk to nearby schools.

But ongoing complaints from fed-up residents about graffiti, rubbish and even drug dealing and violence along the laneway led to Hastings District Council taking action.

The council decided in September 2021 to begin a process to close it off between Frederick St West and Manuka St.

A map of Mahora and the alleyway (in red).

More than a year later, the council finalised the decision to permanently close it off in December, after considering further community feedback.

Question marks still remain over exactly when that will be in 2023, as well as how the land will be divided up - among residents or repurposed by the council.

Resident Renae Van Der Meer said the process was dragging on.

“Yeah [I’m pleased it is closing], but I’m also sitting there going, ‘How long is that going to take?’

“Because while this process has been going on for about 16 months, we have been trying to get that alleyway closed since I was little.”

She claimed during her many years living next to the laneway, windows to her house had been broken by people in the alleyway and rubbish had been tossed over the fence onto her property.

Nearby resident Renae Van Der Meer with her daughter Maddie. She would love to see the alleyway closed off. Photo / Warren Buckland

She has also heard yelling and violence on numerous occasions, and believes it is used for drug deals - with people pulling up next to the alleyway before dashing down it.

Van Der Meer said it would certainly lower her anxiety and be a relief when it was closed.

She said if the council split up the land and gave it to adjacent property owners, she did not mind paying for a piece of that land, “as long as it is not going to cost an arm and a leg”.

But she said if the laneway was simply blocked off at each end it would cause problems, as people could use it as a dumping site.

Hastings District Council is also investigating other troubled laneways around the district which may need to be closed in the future.

Transportation policy and planning manager Bruce Conaghan said, during a recent meeting, that council staff would be speaking to impacted property owners next to the Mahora alleyway in early 2023.

“Then we are looking at negotiations as to how the portion of land could best be handled... there is some work to be done, but much of that will be done in the first quarter of [2023].”

Councillor Malcolm Dixon told the Hawke’s Bay Today during the initial stages of the project, back in 2021, that schoolchildren tended to avoid narrow lanes with high fences.

“Young children prefer not to use them,” the former principal said.

“They find them very claustrophobic and quite dangerous because there is no escape route, even from a large dog.”