Source: Radio New Zealand
Artist’s impression of the planned Sunfield development in Auckland. Winton / supplied
One of Auckland’s largest new housing developments – the Sunfield community near Ardmore Airport in South Auckland, given the go-ahead under fast-track rules – has raised the ire of local politicians.
Developers Winton envisage nearly 4000 homes, a town centre, retail and healthcare buildings, three retirement villages and approximately 26 hectares of parks and reserves and ecological areas. Regional development minister Shane Jones says it will deliver up to $3.2 billion to the economy and support more than 24,000 jobs over the 10- to 15-year building period.
But concerns have been raised that it sits on a flood plain, is located near an airport, and does not have the extensive transport, water and sewerage infrastructure needed to support it.
The fast-track panel that gave the go-ahead did attach a number of conditions, including the need for stormwater and drainage management plans. But Kelvin Hieatt, the chair of the Papakura Community Board, and Auckland councillor Richard Hills, chair of the Policy and Planning Committee, say those have not been met.
“We’re sort of downstream of everything, and you consider what’s got to go into that suburb and if there is a major storm, major flooding coming through, eventually their systems get overwhelmed and it’s going to be coming downstream,” Hieatt told RNZ’s Nine to Noon on Wednesday.
“Our Papakura stream is the receiving environment and it’s going to come out through our communities. So that’s the last thing we want to see.”
Hieatt said the land Sunfield was being built on was peat, “so what doesn’t drain away has to run off. And particularly when you’ve got these large storms moving through, once the ground is soaked, it has to go somewhere. You couldn’t build in enough residue, residual infrastructure up there to accommodate it. It’s got to go somewhere once you overload it.”
Auckland councillor Richard Hills. Alexia Russell
He said the presently rural area presently had no treated water, stormwater, power, communications infrastructure or plans for transport.
“There’s nothing. Everything’s got to come out from Papakura to that area. There was some planning in the past… but that land is noted after, particularly after the Anniversary Day storms and then Cyclone Gabrielle as being flood-prone and at-risk. There’s a lot of work gone into the future development strategy to keep those areas rural…
“One of the things with this development is there’s supposedly no cars on site.”
Sunfield’s plan involves electric shuttle buses once the population hits a certain level. But not before then. Hills called it bad city planning.
“They don’t even start the electric bus until 445 households are already in there, and they’re going to give them temporary parking for the first part of their lives there and then have the electric bus come in and I guess the cars just magically disappear… It is not normal city planning, and people expect us in all those neighbouring neighbourhoods to this site to deal with it, and we may not be able to.”
Hieatt said future residents might not appreciate being so close to an expanding airport either.
“We [don’t] want another Western Springs, where we have infrastructure that’s been in for decades, decades and decades before people move in, all of a sudden they think, ‘Oh, well, it’s my peace and quiet.’ Hang on a sec, you’ve moved in at the end of a runway, you know?”
Hills said there was little the council could do to slow down the development until it met its standards.
Sunfield community concept sketch. Winton/Supplied
“Fast-track supersedes all. I mean, we only get a couple of days to respond. Most of the work can’t be done. If you look through the Watercare responses, they say they didn’t [have time to check] some of the evidence they needed.
“So it doesn’t mean that there won’t be still resource consenting processes for housing in that development… but even through this process, there’s been no work on the overland flow paths, which is a normal process. There’s sort of no real suggestion about how stormwater is dealt with in a flood situation.
“It does deal – or supposedly deal – with lighter storms or heavy rain. But we know from 2023 and from this year across New Zealand how drastically things can change and where you build is just as important as how the infrastructure is around it.”
He said unless the developer planned to look after the development “forever”, eventually problems would end up back with the council.
“We have no plans for wastewater and water supply in that site anytime soon. And so it’s just pulling out-of-sequence infrastructure spending from current urban areas to these areas, which I’m assuming we’re going to be forced to do under the fast-track.”
He said the council was not trying to stifle development, but there was only so much it could do, particularly if rates were getting capped.
Winton was invited to join Nine to Noon to talk about its plans, but no one was available.
In a statement, it said the engineering solution for the Sunfield community had been designed by a ‘tier 1’ engineering firm, and the work had been peer reviewed by a further two equally well qualified independent engineering firms.
It said the stormwater solution for Sunfield was based on stage one of the Awakeri Wetlands, which serviced part of the Sunfield site, which was designed and constructed by Auckland Council and was currently operational.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
