Bid to stop bulldozers moving into waterfront

Onehunga community representatives were last night taking legal advice on how to stop motorway construction bulldozers moving on to their waterfront today.

They were considering seeking an injunction pending a judicial review of the validity of commitments they say former government departments made to restore the waterfront after the existing motorway was built along Onehunga Bay in the 1970s.

The Transport Agency wants to double the width of the motorway as part of its $230 million duplication of the Manukau Harbour crossing, and says it can wait no longer for an agreement on waterfront restoration.

"We must get on with tree clearing and earthworks in preparation for the widening to ensure they can be completed before the end of the current construction season," the agency's regional director, Wayne McDonald, said after an impasse yesterday in negotiations with the Onehunga Enhancement Society.

"The completion of these works is vital if we are to keep the State Highway 20 Manukau harbour crossing project on its critical path and have it completed in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup."

Enhancement society chairman Jim Jackson said after meeting the agency and Auckland City officials that his community had no wish to delay the project unnecessarily.

But he said that without gaining a firm commitment to rectify failures of the past, Onehunga may never gain the coastal restitution it had long deserved, in the form of an 11ha reclamation promised in 1974.

"This is one of our last opportunities to secure the 11ha for Onehunga," he said.

Although Auckland City has agreed in principle to manage a coastal restoration project, after the agency refused to do so, Mr Jackson is disappointed it will not commit itself to anything like the full 11ha.

That is because promised financial contributions of $18 million from the agency and $10 million from the city may leave a shortfall of $10 million to $20 million, given a refusal by Auckland Regional Council to help.

City Development Committee chairman Aaron Bhatnagar said earlier that his council was keen to provide "as much environmental restitution as the dollars will allow". However, he stressed it was important the council did not overextend itself.

But he was unable to say how much restoration that would allow, except to indicate it may be more than 3.8ha proposed by council officers last year under a coastline masterplan criticised by the Onehunga group.

Mr Jackson said his group was still exploring potential cost savings, such as using dredged harbour mud or recycled glass from stockpiled household refuse collections in the reclamation.

It is also seeking meetings with Government representatives for extra money to fill the funding gap.

Mr McDonald said his agency believed it had done "everything possible" to broker an agreement on long-term restoration plans for the foreshore, and welcomed the city's decision to lead the project.

He said that based on historic weather figures, only 15 days of the construction season remained to clear vegetation and complete earthworks in time to allow motorway lanes along Onehunga Bay to be built over winter.

He said the work would not preclude any foreshore restoration work.