Cone guardians warn of eyesore risk in cutbacks

An artist's impression of what Mt Roskill, considered to be of international importance, will look like if landscaped as agreed. Photo Ngati Whatua.

Guardians of the Mt Roskill volcanic cone believe it will be an eyesore if a cycling and walking path is built without proper landscaping.

Ngati Whatua and the Volcanic Cones Society have indicated concern over a proposal for Auckland City to build the pathway first, while considering ways of trimming costs from a complex landscaping project agreed to by 38 organisations.

The council last year approved a tender from Fulton Hogan - contractor for the Transport Agency's Mt Roskill motorway extension which will open in a fortnight - for $1.456 million, plus $225,000 for the cycleway.

That is to be the final link in a pathway along the 4.5km route of the $201 million motorway, between Hillsborough and Owairaka.

But council officers are reviewing the project, and will report to next week to city's transport committee, after a rise in costs to $2 million.

That has led to a suggestion by Mt Roskill Community Board chairman Richard Barter, who says he knows only of a cost increase to between $1.7 million and $1.8 million, for the project to be carried out in two stages within the five-year resource consent.

Although Mr Barter says he is keen to ensure the full project is completed with no more than minor changes, his proposal is alarming protectors of the volcanic cone, who fought successfully to keep the motorway from eating too far into its northern flank.

Volcanic society spokesman Greg Smith said he feared the landscaping, including a palisade fence and walls made of basalt dug from the mountain, would not be completed unless the project was done "in one hit."

"It will be even more difficult to complete under a new council," he said.

Mr Smith said the plan had been agreed to after "extreme consultation" with groups, and he feared any savings would be negated if the council had to obtain a new resource consent.

"This is going round in circles - it was never going to be a straightforward piece of the cycleway, where you can just flop down concrete and get on with it," he said.

"You are on this mountain which has been held up by both the Environment Court and High Court as being a place of national and international importance."

Mr Smith said the proposal agreed to, which was designed in consultation with Ngati Whatua to resemble early features of the mountain, would leave the Mt Roskill community with a "terrific looking" legacy.

"As it is of international importance, you'd expect something a bit better than what is dead ordinary."

He said the Transport Agency had gone further than its legal requirements under the 1915 Volcanic Cones Act, by providing a curved rather than straight slope above the motorway, and it was up to the council to match that effort.

Ngati Whatua heritage and environment spokesman Ngarimu Blair said yesterday that the iwi, having "bent over backwards" to accommodate what was essentially a transport function across the Mt Roskill cone, wanted the cycleway project completed in full as soon as possible.