Long Bay housing development approved

Long Bay beach. Picture / Greg Bowker

North Shore councillors voted last night to push ahead with plans for a big housing development next to Long Bay Regional Park.

The decision left veteran campaigner George Shierny a disappointed man.

The 85-year-old stood alone outside the council chambers, shaking his head at what he and other supporters of the Long Bay-Okura Great Park had just witnessed inside.

The council had adopted the recommendations of its independent commissioners for a structure plan that will allow mixed-density housing on private rural land next to the park and marine reserve.

"What makes Long Bay is those green hills - they're a bloody jewel," said Mr Shierny, who had promoted the 200ha of hills as an extension of the park.

"People can go from the houses to a country area with no one looking down on you. If you build houses on them [the hills] this will be lost.

"I spent two months taking a petition round the park. The tourists said they had nothing like that at home."

Deputy Mayor Dianne Hale said the council could not delay approving the plan, as had been requested by the Great Park Society.

If it did delay, then it risked developers seeking resource consents for housing of more intensity than the plan proposed.

If the council tried to rezone the land as a reserve, it would have to immediately buy it, and could not afford it.

The vote was carried with 12 in favour and two abstaining.

One who did not vote, Chris Darby, said councillors were not really making a decision because they had been told that a 1967 court decision left them no choice but to adopt the commissioners' recommendations.

Mr Darby also blamed the situation on "slash and burn" planning laws which allowed the Auckland Regional Council to extend the metropolitan urban limits for housing growth.

The limits should not have been pushed out beyond the south ridge of Long Bay to take in open space - "it is not smart development."

Rising oil prices brought the need for a compact city rather than sprawling suburbs.

"You need green lungs - like Long Bay - and you need limits."