For immediate release: 23.3.2007

Mayoral candidate calls on KCDC to resolve historic airport grievances

Kapiti Mayoral candidate Jenny Rowan has called on the Kapiti Coast District Council to show some leadership in resolving longstanding iwi and McLean family grievances at Paraparaumu Airport.

Public anger and disquiet over the longstanding injustices dealt to the former owners of the land would not go away until the Council worked with the Crown to negotiate a fair and just settlement over the airport, she says.

Currently Deputy Chair of the Paekakariki Community Board, Jenny Rowan was actively involved in successful community action to return Whareoa Farm into public ownership for future generations in Kapiti.

“Given what is currently happening in Coromandel, and what happened at Whareroa Farm, the climate is now ripe for the Council to work actively with Crown agencies to right this wrong,” she says.

“The Council has a vital role to play, in fact, it has obligations under the Resource Management Act, that require it to undertake a proper analysis of the airport and what the expectations of people across the district are for it.

“The fact that new airport owner Noel Robinson has managed to lodge a legal plan change to develop the airport indicates that the Council had a planning climate that enabled him to do this. Part of the mess we are in now is because the Council has not sorted the previous grievances and has not consulted properly and transparently with the people,” she says.

“Much of the anger and concern expressed by people at recent meetings has come from feelings and suspicions that democratic processes were not being followed. Some of this may have come from contradictions within the District Plan, or from seemingly inappropriate actions and comment by elected officials,” Jenny Rowan says.

“It is important for a mass movement of people across the district to lodge submissions as part of the future process. The Council needs to get a very clear message from the people about the future of the airport,” she says.

Ends.

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