Controversial Wainui scheme is tossed out

Gisborne Herald, June 10, 2008
By Marianne Gillingham

The controversial Wainui, Okitu, Sponge Bay reticulation proposal was tossed out yesterday, in the face of the most cohesive protest action yet against Gisborne District Council.

But while they will not be reticulated, Wainui and Okitu residents' septic tanks will be closely monitored to ensure they comply with environmental health standards. Where this leaves the new Sponge Bay subdivision has yet to be ascertained, with sections there believed to be below the size required for adequate septic tank drainage.

Makorori residents will be back to the drawing board to "actively pursue alternative options".

After four days of working through more than 400 submissions on the issue, Mayor Meng Foon yesterday tabled an 11th-hour report with 12 recommendations to abandon the proposal, to the outrage of some councillors.

Pat Seymour, Gary Hope and Andy Cranston were aghast that they were expected to vote on the eight-page report at such short notice.

Andy Cranston said it was probably the most important decision he had yet had to make as a councillor. He wanted some time to mull the report over before making any decisions.

Hemi Hikawai said as far as he was concerned there was nothing to consider.

"We have sat here on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday listening to all these people who came in to make submissions and have had the opportunity to read many others. The message is quite clear . . . they don't want it. What is there to consider? If you did not get the message, then there is something horribly wrong."

Gary Hope said he was annoyed with the details -- these people did not want any more committees, conditions and doubts.

"These people have not been sleeping at night," he said. They did not want any more procrastination or uncertainty. They

wanted a simple headline saying "Councillors vote no on Wainui reticulation."

He was also annoyed that some councillors and staff -- finance committee chairman Craig Bauld, Mayor Meng Foon and chief executive Lindsay McKenzie -- had been "sneaking around behind our backs'' at the weekend putting together recommendations and reports on the issue "to protect our arses".

"It is all bullshit and I am not having any of this technical bullshit," he said.

He did not want anything to do with it.

All other councillors eventually voted in favour of the proposal, apart from Atareta Poananga and Kathy Sheldrake, who were absent. Hemi Hikawai suggested the council should just vote no to reticulation and ask for monitoring. But Craig Bauld said the extra clauses were needed to tie up other loose ends, such as Makorori. This had a special case that the council could not just ignore.

He was supported by Alan Hall, who said that by rejecting reticulation there were other consequences, for things such as section sizes and building restrictions, for example. The recommendations recognised those consequences.

Some councillors had problems with parts of the reports justifying the decisions which, among other things, conceded that while the council's intention on consultations was genuine, it had not met everyone's needs and could have done better.

Pat Seymour took strong exception to this, saying that community representatives the working party had initially consulted with were different to the group who were now passionate about the issue.

On Lindsay McKenzie's advice, it was decided to review the report on the decision for further consideration when the Long-Term Council Community Plan came back to the council for adoption at the end of June.

The Local Government Act and the Audit Office both required the rationale behind a decision of such magnitude, which went against all the supporting statements from council officers, he said.

The council would also leave itself open to challenge from one or two submitters if it did not give the reasons for such a change in direction. The difficulty was that it had all come at the 11th hour, he said.

To meet auditing requirements, decisions on any major LTCCP changes were required by this week to meet auditing requirements for rates-strike deadlines.

Councillors decided to adopt all but one of the recommendations.

Graeme Thomson, who was chairman of the original working party, said he had been in favour of reticulation when the cost was believed to be around $7000 a household. Since they had escalated to over $26,000 a household, it was clearly not affordable and he was happy to move the motion to adopt the recommendations.

But at Pat Seymour's suggestion, councillors dropped a recommendation that any programme coming out of monitoring and development planning be funded out of a targeted rate.

Andy Cranston said he was worried about the monitoring requirements. There was already a lot of suspicion about the council at Wainui and the requirement was likely to raise fears that once septic tanks failed, people would be back in the same position six or eight years down the track.

It was premature to speculate about the thresholds for tank upgrades, said Mr McKenzie.

These would be worked out on a collaborative basis.Return to >> HOME