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A bid led by television personality and former All Black Marc Ellis to set up a cafe at Piha has won its resource consents, despite strong opposition from residents trying to protect urbanisation of the west coastsurf village.
Planning commissioners who heard the consent bid in December say the Seaview Rd site is suitable for a cafe and, with conditions, will meet consent requirements of the Auckland Regional Council and Waitakere City Council.
"We are pleased - it's been a long, messy, costly, complicated process," said Andrew Higgs, who is one of five directors of Preserve Piha, including Mr Ellis.
"We will improve on the cafe-style tuck shop that's already there.
"We don't want to see Piha overcommercialised ... some standards are needed and we feel a line has been drawn," said Mr Higgs, who lives in Piha.
He said the 35-seat cafe should be open by Christmas if work is not delayed by appeals to the Environment Court.
But cafe opponent Protect Piha Heritage says it is disappointed by the conditions as well as the result and is considering making an appeal.
"There's no restriction on opening hours - the cafe can go from first dot to the end of the day," said heritage spokeswoman Sandra Coney.
Protect Piha Heritage asked at the hearing for hours of operation limited from 10am to 5pm daily.
This was because of concerns about noise generated by the cafe and the ability of its on-site wastewater treatment plant to cope with customer demand.
The cafe site is situated next to a convenience store and opposite the village campground and its library.
Council officers went further in their recommendations, saying the cafe and internet facility must not operate outside of 7am to 7pm Monday to Saturday and close on Sundays and public holidays.
They also advised a limit of 120 patrons a day plus six staff.
Applicants Preserve Piha Ltd sought consent for a capacity of 35 patrons at any one time. It protested that restricting hours of trade meant it could not recover its costs and the cafe would not be economic.
It said an expensive septic tank system was capable of serving more than 120 patrons a day.
In their decision, the commissioners say the critical factor is controlling the daily waste discharge and not people numbers and restricting hours of operation.
Curbing trading would not give adverse noise effects on weekends and public holidays because that was when strong activity could be expected in the vicinity of the Piha Store, campground and library.
The commissioners say the consent conditions make it unlikely that a discharge from the cafe wastewater system will adversely affect the sensitive Piha lagoon, because effluent will be treated to a high quality for ground soakage.
But they agree with officials that the flow into the cafe's treatment system should not exceed 3300 litres a day.
When flow neared the limit, an alarm would sound in the cafe and the manager would have to close.
In response to submitters' concerns, the commissioners imposed stringent effluent monitoring conditions to ensure that the treatment plant was performing well.
A sign in the cafe would advise that on-site toilets were for the use of patrons only.
If in the future, the cafe owner sought a liquor licence, a further resource consent may be required.
To further restrict wastewater flow, the only food preparation permitted on the premises would be reheating pre-prepared food, preparation of tea, coffee and other beverages, and preparation of simple foods.
Full on-site restaurant-style meal preparation would not be allowed.
At the hearing, the land-use application drew 108 submissions in support and 92 in opposition. The wastewater discharge application had 73 submissions in support and 46 against.
