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Residents of a historic Far North township are upset about the large amounts of concrete and steel that dominate a district council-funded redevelopment of the waterfront.
Some residents and property owners of registered historic buildings in the coastal village and fishing port of Mangonui are appalled at precast concrete slabs and modern steel fence railings that have materialised on the seafront as part of the $1.2 million redevelopment.
"It's not what we signed up for. It's not the way we envisaged it for the town," said local businessman and owner of the historic wharf store James Wallis.
The Historic Places Trust claim the changes will have serious harmful effects on the historic values of the local heritage precinct.
Waterfront building owners and ratepayers thought they were getting a timber boardwalk on top of a compacted fill reclamation just in front of a revamped sea wall to bring water in the harbour "closer" to the town, all in keeping with its historic flavour.
But the boardwalk disappeared from the final product, with locals totally unaware.
What they got was a series of steel and concrete piles driven into the seabed to support precast concrete slabs for increased parking space behind a steel and concrete fence.
Mr Wallis has powerful support from a near neighbour and fellow historic building owner, new Far North Mayor Wayne Brown.
"There's nothing historic about this," Mr Brown told a public meeting in the township.
"Precast concrete and stainless steel weren't even readily available when Sir Ed Hillary climbed Mt Everest [in 1953]."
Mr Brown, a civil engineer, has described the project being built just metres from his home, as "grossly over-engineered".
He claims another consultant was engaged to design the stainless-steel fence that is "not in the least bit historic" and that the project has blown out from an initial estimated cost of about $300,000 to the present $1.2 million. The redevelopment, aimed at increasing parking, improving traffic flow, creating green space and making the harbour-front area more pedestrian friendly, has been 13 years in the making after a scheme was first mooted in 1994.
More recently, the project's consent was appealed by the local Kenana Marae to the Environment Court, mainly on the grounds of impact on the marine environment, tidal flows, kaimoana and lack of account of Treaty of Waitangi principles.
The appeal was resolved in 2004 through mediation by an environment commissioner, with a major outcome being an agreement to build a boardwalk structure on piles.
Not one owner of historic buildings in the village, nor the Historic Places Trust, was involved in the mediation hearing and the project "lost its connection with the water", Mr Brown and Mr Wallis say.
Building began last year before Mr Brown was elected mayor in October.
"My building has stood over the harbour for more than 100 years," he told the Mangonui meeting. "It's survived all sorts of storms but it's never shaken like it did when these people [contractors] started driving piles. Then I realised something was wrong."
Mr Brown praised community facilities manager Alastair Wells for "having the balls" to front up to the Mangonui meeting.
Mr Wells acknowledged a lack of communication from the mediation hearings in 2004 relating to changes made to reclamation and pile work. He said engineers had estimated the project's cost at $680,000 but when tenders came in at nearly $1.2 million, the project went ahead anyway because the council and community wanted it. About $600,000 has been spent so far.
Meanwhile, residents and owners of most of the town's registered historic buildings, including the Mangonui Hotel and the garage, have formed a small group "to try to rescue the situation" while work is temporarily stopped because of holiday traffic.
TRUST JOINS IN CRITICISM
The Historic Places Trust has joined local people in strongly criticising the redevelopment on the Mangonui waterfront.
In a letter to the Far North District Council, Northland manager Stuart Park says current construction is "certainly not" what the trust was led to believe was proposed.
This includes the concrete and coated steel fence and spiral circular concrete poles supporting the new parking structure which obscure the historic sea wall from the seaward side.
"What has been created is a substantial visual and physical barrier between the town and its harbour," something the trust wanted to avoid, Mr Park wrote.
The trust now wants to know how the council intends to mitigate "the harmful effects of the work it is undertaking" and how the historic relationship between land and sea in the Mangonui heritage precinct can be restored.
