Council revisits Wainui scheme after backlash
Saturday, 26 April, 2008
By Marianne Gillingham

The public outcry over Wainui-Okitu reticulation plans has prompted Gisborne District Council to take another look at the options.

Alan Davidson told a meeting of the council on Thursday the project should be abandoned altogether while the council concentrated on the other major project before it.

One project was on the wish list, the other was a regulatory requirement.

The whole thing was starting to look like another Mander Road, Gary Hope said.

"The people there are telling us they don't want it, yet here we are looking at other costings," he said.

At the suggestion of Kathy Sheldrake, staff agreed to take another look at the option of applying for a 50 percent government susbsidy.

Engineering and works department manager Peter Higgs said staff were already considering this but the reality was that the $140 million allocated to this in 2002 was already spent.

There were indications the fund might be increased by $260 million. This had yet to be confirmed but an application was being made anyway.

Mr Higgs told the council that as a result of the feedback, the council had engaged drainage contractors to have a look at the figures put forward by Opus consultants.

They were also reviewing the scheme as a whole and redesigning it was an option.

Also looked at was the possibility of households sharing grinding pumps and the council taking ownership of them.

Aerial photographs were being taken and research done to see where pumps could be shared.

At around $8000 each, this would represent a significant saving.

Mr Hope said the council should not be spending another cent on the project until a decision was made as to whether or not it would even go ahead.

The council had told people it would listen, and 80 percent were saying they did not want it.

Mayor Meng Foon asked that the review also look at the option of taking the sewer and water lines past people's gates, and leaving it up to residents to hook up to the system when their septic tanks needed replacing.

This was the reticulation committee's original preference, said Wainui reticulation steering committee chairman Graeme Thomson.

Earlier consultation had shown that if they had to have it, people wanted the ability to stage it, he said.

The council's review would also consider other options, including a scheme being installed by the Kaipara District Council at Mangawhai Heads, tabled by Pat Seymour. Reticulation there was costing $2000 per household, with pan charges of $630 a year, with an $11,060 development levy on any new sections created there.

By contrast, at Wainui it was costing $26,000 a household, which did not include GST or the substantial increase in the cost of wastewater treatment Wainui residents would be helping to pay.

Atareta Poananga said that while she felt sorry for the people involved, the same cost was faced by people in the country setting up water and septic tanks.

"We have to bite the bullet and might have to look at staging it," she said.

What Ms Poananga was overlooking was that people at Wainui already had systems, said Roger Haisman.

Pat Seymour said this and the city wastewater treatment project were serious issues in the district.

Any application would have to be supported by some real figures and a social impact report.

Up to now, the council had only had a "whiff" of the real costs of the wastewater plant.

Any application would have to be backed by some true facts and figures.

Nona Aston said there would inevitably be more development at Wainui. She would feel really responsible if someone in 20 years asked why the council had done nothing.

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