Editorial: Key satellite towns safer in Super City

Opinion

The fate of some beautiful places north of Auckland has become a hotly contentious detail of the Super City plan. Places such as Warkworth, Matakana, Omaha, Snells Beach and Leigh may be beyond the city limits if the Government has come down on the side of Rodney separatists. The Super City design is under study by a select committee of Parliament that is not due to report to the House until next Friday. But the Government has pre-empted the committee on one issue this week, Maori representation, and is thought to have settled the northern boundary too.

If it has agreed to exclude the aforementioned places it is making a mistake. Some of them are already satellite towns of Auckland and all of them are under pressure of increasing subdivision for lifestyle blocks, holiday and weekend homes. With the recent extension of the Northern Motorway to Puhoi, commuting can be considered too.

It may seem that the way to protect them from this pressure is to put them outside the reach of the proposed Auckland Council. But the reverse is likely. If they are excluded from the Super City they will become the population centre and financial backbone of whatever rural district will administer them. It may be a rump Rodney or an enlarged Kaipara District Council based at Dargaville. Either way, a council with little population and a large area to service would be under greater temptation to develop the Rodney coast than a Super City would be.

And once urban development occurred, the demand for more services would soon be felt by the Auckland Council. There would be a logic to extending roads, bus routes and reticulation networks northward from Auckland rather than trying to maintain self-contained communities. Eventually the city boundary would be extended. Better that it be drawn correctly now.

It is in everybody's interests that the new Auckland Council cover most of the area overseen by the regional council now. Residents of Rodney and Franklin districts are divided on the question of inclusion in the city and their councils want out of it. But the concerns of rural residents and councils are little different from their urban counterparts. Rural dwellers express fear that their interests will hardly register on the radar of an Auckland-wide council. Many urban residents share that fear, hence their desire for a subordinate level of government to survive.

While the prevailing mood in the urban areas seems to be one of resignation to the inevitable, residents of the region's rural periphery are in a different position. Geography gives them an escape. No doubt Rodney secessionists have been bending the ears of their local MPs, who happen to be Prime Minister and Speaker of the House, and the word is that they have succeeded. If so, Orewa and Whangaparaoa would be included in the Super City but almost everywhere north of Waiwera would be out.

The exceptions would be the fine regional parks, Wenderholm, Mahurangi, Tawharanui and others, which Auckland ratepayers have bought and maintained and would keep. Likewise in the south the Hunua water catchment should remain with the city if the rest of Franklin is severed. But the whole prospect is untidy.

The parks, beaches, boating, fishing, camping and weekend retreats of Rodney and Franklin districts are a valued part of Auckland's life. They would not be swamped or forgotten by a Super City, they could expect to continue receiving about $3 in regional services for every $1 of rates drawn from them.

If they are put outside that rating pool they will remain an urban playground and face all the development and financial demands on places in their position. If the Government is about to consign them to that fate, it should think again.