Rudman's city: Where city life might well be a bit of a blast

By BRIAN RUDMAN

When it comes to living next to a potential fuel and gas bomb, how close is close enough? As far as Auckland City is concerned, the proposed 33-apartment development on the Halsey St side of the Viaduct Harbour is it.

Residents of these gloriously sited new homes lie just outside the official risk line. That's the one calculating that there's less than one chance in a million of succumbing to a fireball or poison gas cloud sweeping across from a calamitous incident at the adjacent tank farm or from the aftermath of a fuel tanker turning turtle on the roadway outside.

However, just to be prudent, developer Nigel McKenna's safety advisers have recommended that exterior cladding on the tank-farm side of the new apartments be "suitably robust and non-combustible" and that the underground carpark be built so that flaming liquid cannot flow in.

Oh yes, and they suggest that, just in case, it would be a good idea to locate the fire sprinkler inlet valve on the opposite side of the building to the hazardous materials. This to give the Fire Service a better chance of getting to it if disaster strikes.

Over the past decade, we've become accustomed to apartment blocks colonising areas once exclusively the preserve of commerce or industry. But of all the odd neighbours the pioneering apartment dwellers have chosen, tanks of flammable materials - fixed and passing by on wheels each day - must surely take the prize.

I guess someone has to occupy the front line, and in this case, Mr McKenna's old log-farm development at the bottom left-hand corner, facing seaward, of the America's Cup Village is it. On that point, the planners are insistent. There will be no migration, they say, of non-industrial activities across Halsey St into the zone called the western reclamation precinct.

And let's hope not, because I for one enjoy the profile of the big circular tanks and other dangerous-goods containers which reign over the northern end of the precinct.

I also think it ridiculous to want to drive, as many dreamers seem to want to do, port and maritime-related industries from their obvious home by the sea to make room for more apartments.

Many, I know, disagree with this. There are the developers, who covet converting the whole area into a giant residential goldmine for themselves. Then there are those who immediately think Sydney when the tank farm is mentioned, going into raptures about building an opera house or a stadium there.

In truth, none of these pipe dreams is likely in the foreseeable future, if only because the majority of the present marine industry and hazardous goods importer-occupiers have no desire to move. What's more, to emphasise this point they have a variety of leases, some perpetual and others not expiring until some time between 2016 and 2026.

Even if we could kick them out, it would be self-destructive of the city to try. In the event of a stoppage of the pipeline between Wiri and the Marsden Pt refinery, Wynyard Wharf on the western reclamation is the only alternative bulk fuel supply route we have. And for products such as chemicals, lubricants, bitumen and bunkering fuels there are fewer options. They are not transported by pipeline or stored at Wiri.

Where the city is expected to find an alternative deepwater port site for this activity and, if one is found, who is going to have to pay for the transfer, is studiously ignored by proponents.

Another concern of mine is the collateral damage inflicted on the city by this slow spread of invasive residentitis. Everywhere you look, the quick-buck merchants are converting office blocks, boiler houses and ageing warehouses into flats. One day people are going to wake up and discover there's not a working place left in the inner city, that they've all been remodelled into little dwelling boxes.

So far, Auckland City has stood firm on this score when it comes to the western reclamation.

In 1998 and 1999 the council commissioned the New South Wales Department of Urban Affairs and Planning to prepare land use safety study reports on the precinct. Last year the department was called in to assesses the risks of transporting dangerous goods through the same area.

Recommendations were duly made and hazard isobars drawn up. The overwhelming conclusion was that the reclamation was not a suitable location for general retail, commercial, office or residential activities. These activities increased the numbers of people living in or visiting the area, thereby upping the risk of calamity if a problem arose on the tank farm.

Across Halsey St, the old log farm just missed out. Now it's on the front line, and I'm certain the views will be magnificent. As for the neighbours, well that's a different matter altogether.