Auckland CBD towards Auckland Harbour Bridge. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Auckland CBD towards Auckland Harbour Bridge. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Auckland’s downtown port has no place to go and needs to get even bigger, says the port company.
Aucklanders who think it's safe to go down to the waterfront again after the "compromise" over the Bledisloe terminal extensions must think again.
While the political face-off between the Auckland Council and its unruly commercial offspring, Ports of Auckland Ltd, played out, bureaucrats, consultants and planning lawyers were engaged in a behind-the-scenes process that will be more far-reaching.
That tussle will peak next week when opposing parties put their case for rules in the Auckland Unitary Plan to cover the port precinct.
While the resource consents granted for wharf extensions under current planning rules face a High Court challenge next month, the Unitary Plan will set the framework for port development for the next decade or more.
And what could happen is frightening if you're in the camp that argues the port footprint covers enough of the Waitemata Harbour already.
The port is pushing hard for more freedom to expand outwards and upwards to keep pace with the city's relentless growth and, it argues, safeguard economic wellbeing.
Its opponents are fighting for priceless views, the fine balance between a "natural" and over-developed harbour and, in Ngati Whatua's case, no further damage to the cultural and spiritual values of the Waitemata.
Last week, the port company's guardians headed off a boardroom clean-out by opting to proceed with only one of the two 100m "finger" wharf extensions it has permission for - pending a full study of long-term options for moving freight to and from our biggest, most industrialised region. But that review won't be able to undo what the plan provides for without a further, drawn-out plan change.
The port company wants a regime giving it a fair chance to extend the Bledisloe terminal by "incremental reclamation" - not just by filling in between the 100m long finger wharf extensions but as far as 170m into the harbour.
What this could mean is revealed for the first time in visual simulations submitted by the port company (shown above, top), termed "Scenario 2". Opponents have produced images of their own (above, bottom) highlighting how, when a ship is berthed, Scenario 2 would obliterate the eastward view from the end of Queens Wharf, a panorama taking in North Head, the harbour entrance and the inner-gulf islands.
Critics - including Auckland Council expert witnesses - say this view is critical to Auckland's "sense of place" - confirming its identity as a harbour city studded with volcanic cones.
The council and Government paid the port $40 million in 2009 to vacate Queens Wharf because of its ability to "connect" city and harbour.
Any future consent application for Scenario 2 would swing on what the Unitary Plan says about reclamation in the port precinct and where lines are drawn.
After mediation in February, the port and council planners proposed a three-tier regime (see map). In essence, reclamation becomes harder the further out you go (Areas A, B and C). But Area B, where approval would be a judgment call after a publicly notified hearing, extends to 170m beyond Bledisloe.
Following the uproar over the finger wharf extensions, the council has hardened up. In its latest submissions, it wants the line brought in to 100m beyond the terminal.
The haggling is not just about where lines are drawn: key words and phrases in the plan - from big picture objectives and policies to the minutiae of specific rules - will define how consent applications are assessed.
And, in negotiations to date, the port has won significant changes to the council's draft. The opening statement now emphasises the port's purpose: to provide for a nationally and regionally significant component of trade and transport infrastructure.
Objectives and policies lend weight to rules providing for "development of the port's capacity for shipping and its connections with other transport modes".
The council says while it has made concessions it has baulked at many of the port company's proposals.
But the port is pressing on, for instance, seeking exemptions from building design and visual amenity rules that apply elsewhere in the central city zone, despite the waterfront location. It even wants rules safeguarding ecological values and water quality eased.
The port's problem is catering for growth in bulk cargo trade. Previous consents allow it to extend Fergusson terminal a further 60m, which it says should cater for increased container volumes for up to 30 years.
But the trend to longer and wider cargo and cruise ships, and past decisions - including vacating Queens Wharf and concentrating port activities to the east - leave it with insufficient berthage and storage space.
Though the council's future port options study looms, the port rejects all alternatives to its continued growth "for the foreseeable future". Citing previous studies (several of which it commissioned), it dismisses options - from diverting some (or all) of Auckland's freight to Tauranga or Whangarei to building a new port - as variously impractical, unrealistic, short-sighted or prohibitively expensive.
Given the sheer scale of growth predicted for Auckland ... there is clearly a pressing need to expand the multi-cargo footprint. It is critical that the [plan] be amended in order to better recognise and provide for the ongoing operation, development and expansion of the port.
Port company expert witnesses appear on Tuesday before the independent hearings panel, headed by Environment Court Judge David Kirkpatrick.
Other submitters - Ngati Whatua's cultural arm, whai maia, the Parnell Community Committee and lobby groups Heart of the City and Urban Auckland - will argue on Wednesday for no reclamation beyond the commercial port's inner basin.
