Queen Street outcry hits next stage too

Bowing to public opinion has forced the Auckland City Council to seriously rethink its plans for stage two of the Queen St upgrade, from Victoria St to Customs St.

As a result, work that was due to start in April could be delayed, architects will have to be consulted again, and it appears likely more money will have to be spent.

The original plan had been to remove trees in the section between Fort St and Customs St, roughly on the line of the original shoreline, and replace them with nikau palms, flaxes and a few pots for plants providing seasonal colour.

But at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday night the council adopted a number of resolutions that will have implications for tree-planting programmes throughout the entire Queen St redevelopment.

A public outcry over the threatened removal of trees in stage one of the revamp forced the council to agree to keep numbers of exotic trees at least at current levels, the length of Queen St.

Jill McPherson, the council arts, community and recreation general manager said yesterday that the revamp would mean more architects, more arborists and more money would have to be ploughed into stage two.

Mrs McPherson could not put a dollar figure on the redevelopment re-think, but admitted "it will cost us more".

"It is all on hold now until we work out the implications of the review."

A central business district development group is due to meet tomorrow to discuss what the effects of Tuesday's meeting would be, but Mrs McPherson had no idea if they would postpone the start of the next stage.

The council will bring back its urban design panel "to look at the function, type and number of trees".

Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard said stage two, from Customs St to Victoria St, would likely result in a mixture of exotic and native trees, mixed with shrubs such as flaxes.

Latter stages of the upgrade would follow the same consultation process as stage one, "but the proposals will be flicked past the urban design panel", he said.

Save Auckland Trees leader Leslie Max said yesterday that the group would be watching "very keenly" as stage two began.

The action group was instrumental in forcing the council to reconsider its Queen St tree plan, and took the council to court to stop the threatened tree-felling.

The council's backdown at this week's meeting has led Save Auckland Trees bosses to call off its court case against the council.

Mrs Max said the decision to stop legal action was taken chiefly because there was no obvious advantage to pursuing the case, although the cost of retaining legal counsel did have some bearing.

"If the council had been more recalcitrant, and unprepared to hear [Save Auckland Trees], we would certainly have considered pursuing it further, though with trepidation on account of the cost."

Save Auckland Trees is yet to receive a bill for its legal advice.