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Auckland City is getting heavier in negotiations for land it needs for a $5 million project to enlarge a busy intersection in Mt Albert.
That follows concern among its staff that too many householders around the intersection of Sandringham and Mt Albert Rds have sold their properties without warning the new owners that 3m frontal strips have been designated for the project.
The council's transport committee has authorised staff to serve notices under the Public Works Act to hasten negotiations for strips in front of 28 properties around the intersection, where 60 crashes have been recorded over five years.
Council property officer Wendy O'Neill said in a report that negotiations had been slow and difficult over the past 16 months, in which just three strips had been bought and an agreement reached for one other.
She said more than 20 per cent of affected properties had been sold during the negotiations "without the new owners being notified of the designation on the properties".
Serving Public Works Act notices would signal the council's intention to begin formal steps to ensure all the necessary land was secured in time for construction to be completed in 2012-13.
Ms O'Neill said the intersection was an important junction for about 40,000 vehicles a day, but reached capacity at peak hours, causing traffic queues and delays. It also had an unsatisfactory safety record, of 60 crashes within a 50m radius over the past five years.
The intersection is likely to become even busier next year, standing between central Auckland and the end of the 4km largely completed motorway extension through Mt Roskill, which will gain a direct connection to a lengthened Sandringham Rd.
But although council staff indicated last year that the improvements would be ready in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, when extra traffic will be bound for Eden Park along Sandringham Rd, transport planning group manager Allen Bufton told the committee the project was being developed independently of any "specific external initiatives".
He said the project had been on the drawing board well before New Zealand was awarded hosting rights to the rugby carnival.
"This is a business-as-usual piece of work," Mr Bufton said. "It's not a Rugby World Cup project - it's a safety and capacity project."
Among the project's main benefits would be the provision of dedicated right-turning lanes, compared with existing shared space in which traffic heading straight ahead was now delayed behind waiting vehicles.
