KEY POINTS:
Architects of the electricity transmission lines straddling urban Auckland were accused at a hearing yesterday of an "amazing lack of foresight" at the expense of communities now living in their shadow.
Manukau City transport manager Chris Freke said those who built the high-voltage overhead lines and pylons in the 1960s and preceding decades failed to make adequate provisions to compensate property owners enough to prevent homes from being built under them.
"Transpower is in a difficult position because the people who put the lines in had an amazing lack of foresight and didn't protect property rights," he told a three-member board of inquiry into a Government proposal to enshrine the national importance of electricity transmission in council plans.
Mr Freke said his council was concerned that a proposed national policy statement would reduce "what little regulatory tension" existed to require Transpower to address the effects of its transmission network on communities.
The statement was based on a false premise that the environment was already protected from Transpower's infrastructure, when investment decisions were in fact governed by narrow cost considerations "at the expense of wider community and environmental objectives".
Of particular concern to Manukau was a requirement by the Electricity Commission for Transpower to seek planning approval for an enlarged open-air switchyard "in the middle of Pakuranga" rather than a less intrusive but costlier enclosed facility.
Mr Freke contrasted that with a wider legislative mandate imposed on Government roading agency Transit NZ to exercise social and environmental responsibility when building highways.
That led Transit to build a tunnel on the Orewa-Puhoi toll motorway extension to minimise environmental effects, even though it had already won approvals for an inferior proposal.
Onehunga Enhancement Society chairman Jim Jackson, who owns an electrical manufacturing business directly under a twin set of 220,000-volt transmission lines, said he feared a national policy statement would remove his chances of gaining compensation for damage or injury from a Transpower proposal to pump more electricity through these.
He told the inquiry board that a significant increase in magnetic field strength on occasions when Transpower switched the total line current to a single circuit had already caused headaches among staff because of shimmering computer screens.
He had refused a Transpower offer to replace affected computers for $15,000 while opposing its application to Auckland City to increase the electrical current, but feared a national policy would remove his ability to protect his business and provide a safe working environment for his 40 or so staff.
A Transpower spokeswoman said from Wellington after the hearing that a stronger magnetic field from the extra electricity current would remain within an internationally recognised radiation health standard.
She said her organisation hoped a national policy statement would avoid a repeat of past land-use conflicts, by requiring new developments near transmission lines to gain resource consents.
Although Transpower was not involved in yesterday's hearing, having already presented submissions in Wellington, a lawyer for state-owned electricity generator Meridian Energy denied the proposed statement would remove anyone's property rights.
John Hassan told the panel that property owners would still be able to raise their concerns at planning hearings under the Resource Management Act.
All that was proposed was a clear national policy direction to "assist" decision-makers when balancing competing considerations.
He noted two cases involving wind-farm proposals, both of which were recognised by the Environment Court as having significant national benefits.
POWER HEARINGS
* A Government-appointed board of inquiry is in Auckland to hear submissions on a proposed national policy statement to elevate the importance of electricity transmission in district and regional planning documents.
* The three-member board is chaired by retired High Court judge Peter Salmon.
