stephen October 31st, 2010

Westfield St Lukes Plan Change – Update October 2010

Following the plan change hearings in June 2010, a draft planners report was produced. The report link is http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/members/councilmeetings/20100923_1800/CNCL%2D23092010%2DOPN%2DAGD%2D%2312.pdf

The independent Commissioners for Auckland City recommended in the final weeks of Auckland City existence that the plan change to facilitate the St Lukes expansion should go ahead. STEPS had made a comprehensive submission on the impacts on Meola Creek, and we presented at the hearings. As reported in an earlier Blog, we supported the peer review done by Council officers in respect of water issues. One reason we appeared is that it has been made clear to us at Resource consent time that our only hope for being heard is by influencing the plan. The Commissioners report appeared to rely on the evidence from the developer.

See pages 62-64 in the decision for 1 page on water and lava forest. As we read it:

- Stormwater will all be worked out at the appropriate time. Despite the contradictory evidence – Westfield engineer is happy with soakage. And the commissioners agreed.

- Waste water effects will be no more than minor and anyway though the situation is unsatisfactory, this is beyond the control of the applicant so it would NOT BE REASONABLE FOR A PLAN CHANGE TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE LACK OF AN INTERCEPTOR.

STEPS asks Who would need sewerage infrastructure to increase peak waste water flows by 8 times?

We were pleasantly surprised at the final Auckland City Council meeting on 23 September that the council deferred a decision.

STEPS believes that St Lukes Community Association were key to achieving this deferral – see press release at:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1009/S00306/st-lukes-community-applauds-mayoral-leadership.htm

Reporter Bob Dey reported on it as follows:

http://www.bdcentral.co.nz/afa.asp?idWebPage=8338&idBobDeyProperty_Articles=14964&SID=351783881

Later the Auckland City Council wisely decided to leave the decision for the new council – see

http://www.bdcentral.co.nz/afa.asp?idWebPage=8338&idBobDeyProperty_Articles=15078&SID=407944042

STEPS is hopeful that the new City Council will pay more attention to the very real infrastructure issues faced by the St Lukes area and will consider the interests of local residents when they review this plan change.

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meolacreek April 20th, 2009

Liz Walker of the St Lukes Environmental Protection Society is interviewed by Edward Rooney on Scrutiny about Meola Creek.

Part One

Part Two

Tags: video

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Liz March 24th, 2009

Some info from Metrowater:

Metrowater manage the creek on behalf of Auckland City who own Meola and four other urban streams on the Auckland isthmus:

The Meola Creek catchment is predominantly under residential land use
with small area of light industry and commercial use, such as St Lukes
shopping centre.
Stormwater disposal via soakage to the underlying volcanic aquifer
occurs across much of the catchment.  This recharges the aquifer, from
which groundwater discharges into Meola stream to the south of the
groundwater divide and, by virtue of the outflow from Western Springs,
into Motions Creek north of the divide.  In the remainder of each
catchment stormwater is piped through the combined stormwater/wastewater
system from which wastewater overflows can occur during some events.

Meola Reef Reserve and land to the south of Meola Road between the two
creeks (Meola and Motions) was previously a landfill.  Although the
landfill has been closed since the 1970′s, leachate discharges have
continued, leading to a current programme of landfill remediation.

Meola Creek has value as a public amenity and an aquatic ecosystem.
Consequently, knowledge of the water quality and the level of
contamination contributed by stormwater and wastewater inputs is
important for the management of the stream.

Metrowater and Auckland City Council have commissioned many studies to
establish baseline water quality conditions in multiple Auckland
Streams.  The results of these studies can then be compared to future
monitoring results to identify the extent of any changes over time.

For extra info about Meola and water catchments in Auckland City:

The most comprehensive source was published in 2001: Auckland City Drainage System Resource Consents Assessment of Environmental Effects

http://www.metrowater.co.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aee_contents.pdf

There are 14 separate chapters published on the web – by Metrowater…  here is one
http://www.metrowater.co.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aee_chpt07.pdf
You can search by chapters and there is an index – they are all similarly
named. Chapter 7 is in fact the biological environment – and chapter 8 is the assessment of environmental impacts. There are also more references.

Aspects of drainage and issues and the new Roy Clements Treeway Boardwalk Project

www.nzsses.auckland.ac.nz/conference/2008/papers/Clarke.pdf

A general introduction to Meola Creek which includes some stormwater
info…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meola_Creek

For general information on stormwater and understanding stormwater and
stormwater systems and issue visit the ARC website/page:
http://www.arc.govt.nz/environment/water/stormwater/stormwater_home.cfm

Other references

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