Brian Rudman: Don't let the facts get in the way of a good stadium plan

The romance blossoming between Ports of Auckland and its Tauranga counterpart, coupled with Sport Minister Trevor Mallard's continuing obsession with plonking a great stadium on the waterfront, highlights the vulnerability of Auckland's front door to passing fads.

Where are the champions of last year's grand vision for a world class, co-ordinated redevelopment when the waterfront really needs them?

My guess is they're sidling up to Mr Mallard, fantasising that if they're suitably sycophantic about providing a waterfront site, he'll hand over a stadium, cost free and batteries in place, ready to switch on.

If ever there was a need for an independent waterfront development authority, charged with realising that vision and nothing more, it is now.

Fortunately the news is not all bad. Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee says "the investment land" - basically everything from the west of Princes Wharf, including the Tank Farm - is to be transferred from port company ownership to a separate development entity.

He said: "There's a broad consensus around the region that there needs to be a special agency set up to develop this land. Our bottom line is it be publicly owned and not taken over by property developers."

The new agency would be a publicly accountable body within the ARC family.

He said the process of setting it up was "in train" before the Tauranga talks began.

The port company was busy enough without being "distracted by property development".

Mr Lee's agency is not the true waterfront authority we need, but prising this property out of the grasp of Ports of Auckland is a good first step, and one that is timely, in light of the uncertainties of the possible civil union, if not full marriage, between publicly-owned Ports of Auckland and part privately owned Tauranga port.

Mr Lee says the port company will retain ownership of the wharves to the east of the Ferry Buildings, such as Marsden and Captain Cook, because they are working wharves.

Which is where the Mallard plan for a waterfront stadium gets a bit sticky, as it would involve a 60,000-seat stadium astride the busy Bledisloe container wharf or closer to the city centre, straddling the adjacent Marsden and Captain Cook wharves.

Port company opposition to surrendering Bledisloe has led Government advisers to focus on a stadium over the next door finger wharves.

Mr Lee admits this could be done only with great difficulty.

He says "conceptually I think it's a very exciting idea", but concedes the port company has statutory obligations to operate a port in a certain manner, and "we would have to listen very, very carefully to its advice".

He said it was possible the port company could live with the proposal and it was a matter "of working that through in a very short time - at the same time bearing in mind we have to reorganise local government in Auckland before Christmas".

Any deal with Tauranga would not make the stadium project easier or harder he said.

The ARC is not the only group to succumb to the waterfront stadium frenzy.

I'm writing this before last night's secret Auckland City Council debate on the issue, but at last week's secret session of the city's economic development committee I'm reliably informed there was unanimous support for the finger wharves option. The decision was made on the basis of a slender report which ranked that option top, followed by Eden Park and then Bledisloe Wharf.

How councillors can make a serious decision on such an issue without any idea of how the stadium will be financed, and without traffic or other planning reports or even any idea if the land being discussed is available boggles the mind.

The councillors are rushing to have their say because the Cabinet is believed to be discussing the Mallard proposal next week, and they see this as the only way to get any say.

But do we need ill-informed backing for hare-brained proposals?

That Aucklanders have not been formally consulted on this Wellington brainstorm is weird enough. But the sight of Auckland's mighty cringeing, tugging forelocks and trying to touch the minister's hem to get his attention is positively demeaning.

And what does it say about their commitment to a planned, world-class waterfront development?