KEY POINTS:
Onehunga community leaders are furious at a bid by Auckland City staff to reduce the scale of a foreshore restoration plan championed by Mayor John Banks.
Council officers have produced a foreshore "master-plan" entailing a coastal reclamation of 3.8ha for $25.2 million, against the 11ha proposed for $33 million by the Onehunga Enhancement Society.
The society wants the foreshore reinstated with four new beaches in conjunction with the $230 million duplication of the Manukau Harbour motorway crossing, which the Government's Transport Agency is under pressure to complete in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
But the council staff have proposed one beach, 120m wide, on a promontory to be formed in the harbour from a pedestrian-cycling bridge which the Transport Agency has agreed to build over a widened motorway.
They have also upset the enhancement society and the Maungakiekie Community Board by recommending that the motorway not be moved towards the harbour, to make room for a utilities and rail corridor between the traffic and an enhanced Onehunga Lagoon.
The society's proposal including the westward motorway shift has won support in principle from Mr Banks and his council's city development committee, under the former chairmanship of Maungakiekie's newly-elected National MP, Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.
Mr Banks said last month that the proposal would "enhance a piece of Auckland's great heritage that over the last 50 years has been substantially degraded, trashed and ruined, allin the name of development and progress".
The Transport Agency has pledged $20 million for the motorway shift and the pedestrian-cycling bridge, and the previous Government indicated a willingness to pay one-third of a reclamation cost indication of $18 million to $33 million, conditional on the city and Auckland Regional Council sharing the difference.
But although the Auckland City committee is recommending an allocation of $10 million from its council, the regional body wants to be assured the plan provides adequate "connectivity" between Onehunga andthe foreshore before agreeing tocontribute.
That includes consideration of a motorway trench, which the Transport Agency says would add between $190 million and $230 million to its duplication project.
The master-plan came under attack from the enhancement society and community board when staff recommended it yesterday to the city development committee as a basis for negotiations with the regional council and others for financial contributions.
Society chairman Jim Jackson said it provided inadequate separation between the foreshore and widened motorway.
But arts, community and recreation policy group manager Ruth Stokes told the committee an initial investigation had identified enough space on the landward side of the motorway for a rail and utilities corridor, without having to move the road.
The committee decided to keep its options open by endorsing both the master-plan and the society's proposal as the basis of negotiations with other funding partners, including the regional council, which will consider the matter next month.
