KEY POINTS:
Mayoral candidate Lisa Prager and 1Auckland.com Hobson candidate Julie Chambers have joined the battle to keep councillor input on consent hearings for projects such as a huge McDonald's restaurant in Balmoral.
Leading mayoral candidate John Banks and Citizens & Ratepayers have agreed with a recommendation from Auckland City chief executive David Rankin to have only independent commissioners on all consent hearings.
Mr Rankin believes councillors should stick to developing policy on resource management issues and leave the implementation to independent commissioners.
Lisa Prager yesterday said having elected representatives was in keeping with transparent and democratically accountable local government.
And Julie Chambers, who was rejected as a council candidate by C&R and joined the new 1Auckland.com ticket, said the process could be improved without taking away local representation.
The left-leaning City Vision ticket is opposed to doing away with the longstanding practice of councillors sitting on consent hearings.
Some councillors earn up to $20,000 above their normal salaries for sitting on hearings. Mr Rankin has recommended paying councillors for developing policy in lieu of the lost income.
C&R deputy leader Doug Armstrong said there was a conflict of interest between councillors drawing up policy on matters such as the district plan and then sitting as planning commissioners.
"A person applying for a permit to get resource consent should not face any political bias," Mr Armstrong said.
Centre for Resource Management Studies director Owen McShane said councillors were disenfranchised from sitting as commissioners because they had to go into hearings with an open mind. This could lead to residents losing their elected voice on local issues.
"If a councillor is not on a hearing committee they can go along and make a submission representing [local] people to the commissioners.
"In my opinion [local people] are more fairly represented that way than having a councillor sitting on a committee," Mr McShane said.
Mr Banks reiterated yesterday that he wanted hearings to be robust and independent but he was not dying in a ditch over the issue.
Nathan Inkpen, a spokesman for a group opposed to a proposed 159-seat McDonald's in Balmoral, and Warren Tuohey, a spokesman for a group wanting changes to high-rise apartments at Orakei Basin, supported a mix of councillors and independent councillors.
Fred de Jong, who was involved in a fight to stop a developer building 129 apartments on the site of the former Logan Park Motor Lodge, said yesterday the hearing had three councillors and one independent commissioner.
Mr de Jong said elderly people, in particular, found the process of making a submission before councillors less daunting. Councillors showed more interest, had a better feeling of the community.
