Committee acts before designation lapses

To ensure the continued protection of the land currently identified for the proposed eastern transport corridor, Auckland City’s Transport Committee today moved to extend the period for the designation from Tamaki Drive to Morrin Road (D14-05) by 10 years, providing protection until August 2014.

Substantial progress and effort is being made on the eastern transport corridor project providing justification to extend the period of designation under section 184A of the Resource Management Act.

The designation from Tamaki Drive to Morrin Road secures the opportunity for a transport corridor but does not allow any construction. It is due to expire on 15 November 2004.

Transport Committee chairperson Councillor Greg McKeown says that protecting the corridor to future transport requirements is strategic and prudent.

“A proposed strategy on how best to protect the route in the longer term will be reported to the Transport Committee along with a more substantial update on the project’s scale,” says Mr McKeown.

“The revised recommendation from Opus International is due in the last week of August and, along with the modified scale, will include more information on form, alignment, mode and staging development of the corridor,” says Mr McKeown.

“It’s worth flagging now that the modified option that Opus presents should be regarded as preliminary. Although progress has been made, clearly we have some way to go to establish a preferred and approved solution for protecting and developing the corridor.”

The designation extension has been referred to the council’s City Development Committee meeting on 11 August 2004 to be actioned.

Today’s decision does not prevent the council from pursuing other options for the protecting the route, including land acquisition, resource consent applications or issuing new notices of requirement.

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