KEY POINTS:
Residents of Waterview fear they may lose their kindergarten as well as more than a hundred homes to a $1.9 billion pair of motorway tunnels.
Transit NZ acknowledged to a meeting in the suburb yesterday that it may be necessary to move Waterview Kindergarten, either permanently or during a four to five-year construction phase.
Although the northern portals for the tunnels will be across Herdman St from the kindergarten and neighbouring Waterview Primary School, principal project manager Clive Fuhr said it might be difficult to control construction nuisances such as dust and vibration.
"It is clearly very close to the construction zone," he said of the kindergarten, which is between the school and several Great North Rd properties through which a covered trench is likely to be dug between the portals and twin tunnels to be bored from Mt Roskill to the Northwestern Motorway.
But Mr Fuhr promised to work closely with the Auckland Kindergarten Association to see whether adverse effects could be alleviated without moving the kindergarten, which is attended by about 60 children in two daily sessions, and has another 20 or so on its waiting list.
Waterview Primary principal Brett Skeen said about 90 per cent of his new entrants came from the kindergarten, so losing it even temporarily would have a big effect on his 140-pupil roll.
He expects to lose more than 20 of his pupils from homes likely to be demolished around the tunnel portals in Waterview Reserve, which has a well-used sports ground.
About 160 homes are expected to be demolished to make way for the tunnels _ including 55 near the southern portals, in Hendon Park next to Richardson Rd.
Transit says many of those would also have been in the way of a more disruptive and potentially more expensive trenched motorway which would have displaced up to 500 houses.
Mr Fuhr told the meeting of about 80 residents _ who were joined by officials of Auckland City, Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Education _ that Transit had responded to community concerns in settling on deep tunnels as its preferred option.
But he said these had yet to become a firm proposal for which resource and land designation consents would have to be sought through negotiation and legal process, from about September or October.
Some residents were concerned at the size of a proposed control centre next to the northern portals, through which Mr Fuhr said a 15m to 20m ventilation stack would be built to disperse fumes from the northbound tunnel.
A similar stack is to be built at the southern end.
Long-standing resident Margi Watson doubted whether the height of the Waterview stack would prevent health problems in winter, as
mist often lingered over the coastal suburb and its mangroves.
"We are a living community and your motorway is all bad for us _ there is nothing good about it," she told Mr Fuhr. "It will impact on our green space and affect the future health of our kids _ you're proposing walkways but I don't see people walking in Grafton Gully _ motorways and bridges are not nice places to go."
Ms Watson said she would not want her 8-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter playing in the school's fields or outdoor swimming pool during the motorway construction.
"My daughter is going to be spending five years, the most important years of her life, next to a motorway."
School librarian Maree Wyatt, whose home in Waterbank Cres is just over the line from properties in the proposed demolition zone, feared Transit might end up demanding more.
Mr Fuhr said that was "highly unlikely", and there was a greater chance that some properties could be removed from the list once the project design became clearer.
