KEY POINTS:
What's the use of ratepayers forking out a $3 million special rate to protect Auckland City's volcanic heritage when city bureaucrats still stand aside and let a house builder hack a building platform into the side of Mt St John?
The latest outrage suggests the first priority should be to educate city officials about the need to protect the volcanic cones. And by that I mean bureaucrats right to the top of the chain.
The most appalling aspect of this latest incident is that when officialdom was alerted by the Volcanic Cones Society that a breach of the 1915 act prohibiting steep cuts into Auckland's cones was taking place, all the boffins did was say "woops" and duck for cover, throwing up a smokescreen of contradictory explanations.
In Friday's Herald, senior planner Paul Arnesen's excuse was that the act had "fallen off the radar" but that the council was now advising people of its existence and potential impact for resource consent applications. It would have been more accurate to say that in parts of the bureaucracy, the radar has been turned off, so that they can pretend the 1915 act doesn't exist.
Since the long lost act came to the last- minute rescue of Mt Roskill in 2003, every city planner worth their job should have been fully conversant with the simple, volcano-saving, wording of this act.
It's not as though the applicant in the latest incident played down its location. Officials knew it was in the sensitive special 3b Mt St John zone. The consent, granted in 2005, even acknowledged that "the earthworks proposed will change the landform of the site ..." but decided that "the overall effect on the site and the volcanic cone against which the building will be viewed will be one of compatibility'.
In saying that, they were falling in with the "trade-off" approach of the Resource Management Act. Nowhere did they consider the more black and white provisions of the 1915 act, which says it is "unlawful" without a special waiver from the Crown to make the sort of excavation proposed on any of Auckland volcanic cones.
The problem at Auckland City is that the bureaucracy appears deeply divided about the 1915 act. At the top, John Duthie, general manager, city development, and Jenny Oxley, group manager, Auckland city environments, consider it irrelevant.
In a May 19, 2006, letter to the Three Kings United Group, Ms Oxley calls it "outdated" and "not an appropriate tool".
A month later, Mr Duthie echoes this in a letter to the group's solicitor, when he says "the 1915 legislation is not an appropriate tool for council to apply ..."
They hide behind a discretionary clause in the act which says when an offence is committed, the council "may" invoke the penalty clauses outlined in the act. In the present case, pressing the issue would have been embarrassing, given it was the city council that issued the resource consent that permitted the property owner to make the "unlawful" cut into the mountain. Unfortunately, under the act, only the council has the power to press the matter further.
But if at management level the 1915 act is regarded as archaic and irrelevant, further down the ladder wiser counsel prevails.
On January 15 this year, senior planner Kathryn Elliss submitted her report into submissions on proposed Plan Change 192, aimed, according to a press release, at protecting "the city's iconic volcanic cones ... from inappropriate development".
Ms Elliss said that "as part of the statutory framework, the council must also have regard to" the 1915 act. "This act places stringent requirements on excavating or terracing land abutting the public reserves on the volcanic cones in the Auckland isthmus ..."
This month, the Volcanic Cones Society asked the council to explain these "very contradictory" positions. They await a reply.
In mid-2006, while Ms Oxley and Mr Duthie were writing their letter dismissing the usefulness of the act, Christine Caughey, chairwoman of the environment and heritage committee, was heralding the proposed plan changes.
"We must act to preserve, protect and enhance [the cones] for future generations to enjoy." She noted that in a growing city, "there will inevitably be pressure for more development in these geologically precious areas."
If Ms Caughey is serious about this, a good first step would be to insist bureaucrats stop ignoring the only law that is specifically aimed at protecting the cones from further destruction.
