KEY POINTS:
The Auckland Regional Council is ducking blame for causing the Orewa high-rise building row which yesterday spawned an unprecedented protest outside the Rodney District Council offices.
About 300 people, some holding placards saying "Build homes for families not towers for holiday homes", were drawn to the protest by a pamphlet claiming the council was about to approve 25 or more high-rise towers.
Residents demanded answers from councillors on the height and number of high-rise apartment buildings envisaged in a draft master plan for growth.
But Rodney strategy and policy chairwoman Penny Webster was unable to tell them.
Braving the crowd's boos and jeers, the former Act MP said they were mistaken to think it was "a done deal" to get more than the one, 12-level Nautilus tower the town already had.
Mrs Webster said the draft was the first part of a long process and the council was now looking at 300 feedback forms from the public.
It would hold a workshop to make some changes to the draft and seek further public submissions as a change to the district plan.
"Probably the Environment Court will make the decision," she said.
"The problem we get in Orewa, Snells Beach or Warkworth is that every time a development comes along we are told by the ARC that it's not high enough, there are not enough roads or not enough people living around transport nodes."
But ARC deputy chairwoman Christine Rose, who is elected by Rodney residents, said the ARC was not forcing growth on Orewa, which the draft master plan wants to grow from 5600 residents to 14,500 by 2050.
"The growth areas are determined by the local council - it's not our determination."
Mrs Rose said the 1999 regional growth strategy accepted Rodney's proposal for Orewa as suitable for intensification around its centre and for more "greenfields" development over the next 50 years.
But the strategy was for managing growth sustainably and the ARC had never told Rodney it had to absorb that much growth in Orewa.
Mrs Rose said she had written to all Rodney councillors after getting several calls from residents concerned about the Orewa planning process.
"Concerns remain about the uncertainty over building heights and processes to manage maximum heights and related effects," her letter says.
"There's a feeling that much of the development proposed is speculator-driven, holiday-home-type accommodation rather than permanent resident-based.
"This leads to questions about the necessity, sustainability and appropriateness of these high-rise developments."
Mrs Rose said there were also questions on whether it was contradictory for the district council to concentrate development on such a low-lying, reclaimed coastal plain.
"The public are acutely aware of tsunami threats."
The district council acknowledged threats from coastal inundation and erosion with coast setback requirements for buildings and noting risks on LIM reports.
Mrs Rose urged councillors to stagger growth instead of a wholesale unleashing of land for high-intensity living that would overwhelm a well-established community.
"There is a risk of getting things wrong in Orewa but we will have many opportunities to get things right if we take it one step at a time."
Rodney Mayor John Law was out of town but earlier said the master plan was trying to reduce the number of towers to six.
Protest meeting convener John Drury, who is chairman of the Orewa Ratepayers and Residents Association, called on Mr Law to approve a public referendum on the high-rise question and "back the people of Rodney against speculators and developers".
