KEY POINTS:
Pressure on the Auckland port company for greater public access to the waterfront looks set to keep mounting, despite the Government's retreat yesterday from building a stadium there.
Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, whose organisation owns the company and scuttled Sport Minister Trevor Mallard's waterfront stadium dream with a unanimous opposition vote, called yesterday for a refocus on the Tank Farm redevelopment as the key to early public access.
But Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard, bitterly disappointed at the regional body's failure to countenance a stadium to "book-end" industrial activity towards the eastern end of the waterfront, warned last night that the public was still far from being guaranteed greater access even through the Tank Farm.
He said the port company was still insisting on too high a price from the city, and a second round of negotiations after the failure of earlier efforts were also floundering.
"We have been working on plan B for several months and we are seemingly going nowhere - it is on the verge of collapse as well."
Heart of the City business association chief Alex Swney said Aucklanders fearful that a waterfront stadium would have denied them access to the waterfront east of the Ferry Building should be aware that current plans would keep them behind a security fence for at least "another generation".
But he warned the port company - which he called a "greedy, lazy landlord" - to expect growing public pressure to follow a world-wide trend to move cargo operations out of city centres.
A port company spokeswoman noted that it had already vacated Viaduct Harbour and was preparing to do likewise at the Tank Farm, in what it described as the "second leg of the treble" of an eastward movement evolving over time as technologies improved.
Even so, a joint document called Waterfront Vision 2040, which the regional and city councils issued last year, indicates Aucklanders will have to wait at least a quarter of a century before Captain Cook Wharf is freed for redevelopment.
Queens Wharf, most of which is occupied by imported cars, is earmarked for "medium-term" redevelopment between 2015 and 2030.
But Marsden Wharf, which would have been covered by a stadium had the regional council agreed to the Government's proposal, is lumped in with the Bledisloe and Fergusson container terminals for port operations continuing past the vision document's horizon.
Mr Lee said the waterfront debate had shifted efforts in recent weeks away from the Tank Farm development and it was high time to refocus energy in that direction.
He said the regional council was waiting for Auckland City to produce a district plan change before the end of the year, for work to proceed on the development, including a footbridge across Viaduct Harbour for pedestrian access to the Tank Farm.
The ARC is also proposing a shore-to-shore park across the Tank Farm at its expense, and believes overall development will be simplified and accelerated once the area is moved from the ports company to a separate entity under the control of Auckland Regional Holdings, a council subsidiary.
But Mr Hubbard said all parties had agreed the plan change would not proceed until the area's ownership had been resolved and he was becoming "very concerned" about the relationship between the city and regional councils.
"I'm a patient man, but the ARC is sorely trying my patience," he said, adding that it was leaving port company chief Geoff Vazey with "an inordinate amount of power for a non-elected person."
The mayor said he was starting to doubt whether the Viaduct bridge to a marine events centre off Halsey St would be ready in time for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, as hoped.
Mr Hubbard said the clear message from the stadium debate was that Aucklanders wanted access to their waterfront and that the regional council must understand that "2km of barbed wire, electric fence and paling-type faces is unacceptable".
But Mr Lee, when asked about public pressure for waterfront access in front of the Britomart heritage precinct where the Government wanted to build a 37m-high stadium, said ships and port operations were an important part of Auckland's heritage.
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