Valentines back-down a credit to Hamilton community

The stupid decision by Valentines restaurant in Hamilton, and the Grassroots Pokie Trust, to try and place 9 pokie machines in the 'family' restaurant, has thankfully been taken off the agenda - for now.

After a public outcry, and a very good Waikato Times article, Valentines saw they were on a hiding to nothing and wisely pulled their head in.

They lamely claimed they had just discovered they didn't have room to fit the pokies in - Yeah, right! And they didn't check this sort of thing first? I don't think so!

The truth is that they wanted to get some extra income from the pokie 'site rentals' to bolster their sagging financial fortunes, and they were advised of a loophole that might allow the machines by their experienced hired gun lawyer Jarrod True, who fronts pokie applications and pokie rule liberalisation around the country.

And Hamilton City Council's planners didn't help things by stuffing up the public application/submission process - first advertising it under a completely incorrect section of the law, then getting the submisssion closing date wrong!

Thanks to Aaron Woolley (Like Minds, Like Mine) and the Problerm Gambling Foundation for the great work they did to alert the community.

When is an 'independent' opinion not independent?

   This is the question opponents of the proposed Eastgate development on the busy Hamilton East corner of Clyde & Grey Sts have been asking themselves, after City Council management sought an 'independent' opinion on the legality of questionable Council planning processes from the very same lawyer Council management had paid to represent the Council in the April Environment Court hearing over the development.

    The Hamilton East Community Trust had discovered that strong restrictions on vehicle access to the Eastgate site had been listed on the property title at the time Council planners had approved the development - limits that meant the development plans could not have been legally approved. Then, days after the development was approved, Council planners retrospectively removed the restrictions without the normal consultation, allowing the Eastgate proposal the vehicle access it needed.

   When the Trust complained to Council management, and asked for an independent legal review of this abuse of process, Council management amazingly sought an opinion from the same solicitor who had run Council's case in the Appeal by the Trust against Eastgate, someone who had received information about this process 'problem' months earlier, but not advised Council management.

   Apart from completely changing the character of this former convent site, the development will add traffic chaos to an already highly-congested route, which is also part of the flagship Orbiter bus route and the main route between the city and the University. The people who want to build the development, and those who approved it, using shonky processes, need their heads read!

Traffic Problems at the Base to worsen before they improve!

   Residents of the northern suburbs will be acutely aware of the traffic problems both inside and outside The Base at certain times of the week – Saturdays regularly being a problem.
   Original calculations of the number of vehicles using the Base and the access roads to it – provided to the City Council and the NZ Transport Agency at the time consents were applied for - were obviously inaccurate, and roads and intersections were therefore not built to cope with the volumes we see on occasions.
   This problem is likely to worsen in the near future as the following developments – none of which can legally be stopped – get built and start operating:
• Farmers Mall at The Base (with nearly 1,000 extra carparks)
• New development at the Base to the north of Mitre 10
• Countdown Supermarket across the highway from The Base entrance
• 5 new office blocks at the corner of Church & Maui Sts
• Large petrol station on the corner of Te Kowhai Rd and the Highway
   In addition, Council is aware that The Base intends to put further developments in the north east corner of their site (in front of Mitre 10), the owners of the Eagle Spares site across the Highway are looking to develop that, and a number of new smaller developments are happening down The Boulevard past Harvey Norman.
   The new Te Rapa Bypass, taking the current highway from Horotiu to Avalon Drive, to the west away from this area is 3-4 years away from completion, and will probably only help the Council mark time with traffic growth in the north.
   One of the major causes of the problems in the area has been the unwillingness of The Base owners to inform Council as to their full plans for the whole site – they are ‘drip-feeding’ development applications segment by segment without ever giving the full picture. This has meant that it is impossible to properly plan for traffic growth and other transport options in the area, as The Base is the major player, and what it does affects everyone else. While they contributed in a small way to the cost of new intersections outside The Base when it first started, traffic growth generated by their development has outstripped capacity of the roads and public transport services.
   The City Council is grappling with how to get this problem area under control, so residents and businesses travelling through the area are not adversely affected more than at present – watch this space!

Cowboy developer given green light for Clyde St debacle

The Environment Court this week predictably turned down an appeal by Hamilton East community representatives against Council approval for a retail building and carparks in the old convent site on the corner of Clyde and Grey Sts in Hamilton East.

The 'development' (to very loosely use the phrase) will cause traffic chaos on what is already the busiest intersection of the highly-congested route between the CBD and the University, and on the key Orbiter bus route for the whole city, not to mention putting up an ugly 2-storey square block, complete with asphalted carparks on a former historical site (I say former given that the developer bowled the trees and the iconic brick wall on the corner in the early hours of the morning, and was called a 'cowboy' by Council management for doing so).

The appeal predictably lost after not one of the professional witnesses the Hamilton East Community Trust lined up was willing to come to court to give evidence, because the Trust wasn't able to pay them in advance - they had already been paid $thousands for preparing written material which the Court then refused to allow to be discussed in court because the authors were not present.

For the record, both the Government's community legal aid fund and the Council refused to assist with the Trust's legal costs, even though the Trust was promoting Council's own strategies.

In the hearing, the developer's and Council's lawyers attempted to belittle the evidence of the two non-professional community witnesses to make sure nothing they had to say about community aspirations were taken account of - reading the 'judgement', this clearly worked. The judge and panel were not from the area, and clearly have no interest in whether Hamilton develops to the benefit of its residents or not!

The traffic impact reports prepared by both the developer's and Council's consultants were pathetic, to put it kindly, making zero acknowledgement of the Council's own transport strategy to REDUCE congestion in this busy precinct, where two schools and two existing shopping centres already contribute to the traffic chaos.

The whole case shows Hamilton City Council's planning processes in a very bad light - we have all the wonderful strategies in the world to promote transport access, safeguard heritage precincts and encourage good urban design, but follow archaic planning practices that move the city in completely the opposite direction.

STOP PRESS: The City Council CEO, Michael Redman, has decided HCC will NOT be pursuing costs against the Community Trust.

Greens All Aboard for Rail Link

By JEFF NEEMS and DANIEL ADAMS - Waikato Times

The Greens have added their support to the campaign for a revived Hamilton-Auckland commuter rail connection, promising to keep pressure on the Government to explore the proposal.

More than 11,000 people signed a petition calling for the construction of a commuter rail connection between Hamilton and Auckland.

The idea has met with strong support locally, with dozens of submissions to Environment Waikato's draft annual plan backing the idea, but it has yet to gain any traction with the Government.

Greens transport spokesman Gareth Hughes – in the city yesterday to meet the Greens' new student arm at Waikato University – said the commuter rail connection had real merit and offered a long-term option for linking Auckland and Hamilton.

Parliament's transport and industrial relations select committee chaired by Hamilton East MP David Bennett had effectively dismissed the petition but Mr Hughes said he believed the idea was "still not dead" despite Mr Bennett acting as "a roadblock".

"We've got the tracks, we've got the (rail) cars, and we've got the support out there, so we need to go ahead and do it – link up the first and fourth-largest cities."

Mr Hughes pointed to the 2011 World Cup as a "great incentive to get a commuter service happening".

He accused the National Government of "gambling all our transport resources on roads" and not thinking long-term.

The Greens wanted to see a "corridor of national significance", with construction of a rail-line – or space for it to be built – alongside the Waikato Expressway the Government has pledged millions toward. Mr Hughes said the Greens did not have costings for a Hamilton-Auckland commuter rail link, but they believed the cost-benefit ratios would still be greater than those for new roads.

Hamilton City Council, has set aside money, and asked Environment Waikato to fund a two-year trial, and support a bid for the New Zealand Transport Agency to contribute.

All aboard for the Waikato Express

By Brian Rudman (NZ Herald, 10/5/10)

"Given all the stick we Aucklanders come in for from anyone living south of the Bombay Hills, it's rather endearing that 11,499 Hamiltonians have signed a petition wanting the passenger train service between our two great cities revived.

Somebody loves us after all. Instead of standing back and letting them fight their own battles, Auckland leaders should be rushing to the petitioners' support.

Indeed, we should be encouraging the Hamiltonians to raise their horizons and campaign not just for a commuter service of two or three trips a day, but something more comprehensive. More...

40kph Speed Zones outside every school in city?

NEW:  Sign the Petition for 40kph speed zones outside schools.

Hamilton City Council's Transport Committee decided today to press ahead with implementing its plan to have a 40kph speed zone outside every school in the city, despite Govt 'rules' supposedly preventing this.

The decision is made to enhance safety for kids - vulnerable road users - after a very recent report showed speeds and accident numbers had both lowered significantly outside the first 7 schools with such zones in Hamilton.

The Govt transport agency (NZTA) currently has a rule that only allows such variable zones (i.e. operating only during start & finish times for schools) in a very limited number of schools 'warranted' for the signs, and does not allow the much cheaper 'static' (non-electronic) signage. This flies in the face of international experience and practices, showing that - once again - NZTA is light years behind the times.

Currently NZTA has only 'warranted' 32 of the 70-odd schools in Hamilton for the low speed zones (though over half of the primary schools are covered), and Councillors are concerned that the travelling public will become confused as to which schools are and aren't covered by the low speed zones. It will be much easier to promote and educate around the low speed zones, and general road safety for vulnerable people, if every school is treated the same.

That's what the City Council intends to do - and will use static signage [see photo of static signage in Brisbane at right] whether or not NZTA is happy, in order to implement the policy in an affordable and timely way.