Brian Rudman: Hasty decisions would blight precious waterfront

The good news is that with that Cup gone, there'll be no double-booking problems at the Viaduct Harbour when the Volvo Ocean Race hits town in the summer of 2005-2006.

In fact, these round-the-world sailors travel so lightly that the ten or so competing teams could share the existing Team New Zealand site with space to spare.

Which does raise the question of what we do with the rest of the publicly owned America's Cup site along Halsey St, now that the existing tenants are up and off to the Med.

My first instinct is to plead against any more apartment buildings.

Plead that no more prime waterfront land - this lot improved at great public expense - be ghettoised into dormitories for the rich.

My second instinct is to suggest open parkland. Somewhere for apartment dwellers and strolling Aucklanders to saunter about on, that is not hard paving. I'd even go along with the name Sir Peter Blake Park. Just as long as they find a prime spot on which to plant Michio Ihara's monumental Wind Tree sculpture, which has been languishing in pieces in city council storage since it was removed to make way for the Britomart train station.

What Infrastructure Auckland - which owns the land on every Aucklander's behalf - should not do, is rush in and lease bits and pieces off for light industrial purposes in the short-sighted belief that the land is too valuable to leave lying fallow for any length of time.

There are already mumblings along these lines. It's up to the politicians - and the public - to tell Infrastructure Auckland to sit back and take a deep breath before doing anything.

Luckily, planning restrictions make any quick decisions on new tenancies unlikely. They certainly rule out any more apartments until the adjacent tank farm - with its hazardous substances - goes.

In December 2001, the council made it clear that the Melview Developments apartment block, now going up on the northern end of the old log farm, is on the front line as far as housing goes in relation to the tank farm.

The planners pointed out that the tank farm contained "one of the primary hazardous substance storage areas for the region" and that these apartments were quite close enough, thank you very much.

Just to be sure, developer Nigel McKenna's safety advisers recommended that the northern walls of the buildings be "suitably robust and non-combustible" and that the underground carpark be built so that flaming liquid cannot flow in.

The planners' concerns echoed the findings of two independent safety reports of 1998 and 1999 which recommended that "residential development should not further encroach on the industrial activities within the study area or on the main transit routes in and out of the area".

There were worries, too, about more office use or restaurants or other activities that brought additional people or cars - more cars, more likelihood of an accident with a tanker - into the area.

Since a variety of leases on the tank farm area expire between 2016 and 2026, it's hard to see the nature of the area changing rapidly.

Of course, if apartments are ruled out for safety reasons as alternative uses for the America's Cup bases, where does that leave a park?

As it didn't come into official consideration in these pre-America's Cup reports, I'm not sure of the official response. Certainly, the 1999 land-use safety study by the New South Wales Department of Urban Affairs and Planning decided that because there was likely to be a maximum of only 800 people in the America's Cup bases at any one time, the safety risk was acceptable.

Using these figures, you might just get away with a park. As long as only 800 were there at any one time. Alternatively, you could add some decorative explosion shelters here and there, just in case, and erect large "enter at your own risk" signs.

Whatever we do, let's do it right.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/marine