Canal plan defeated

Submitted by Josh Page on July 7th, 2010

Article from the Papakura Courier - 30 June 2010

THE broad smile on Mary Whitehouse's face says it all. Her group's five-year fight with the Manukau City Council and the Wairoa River Development Partnership over a canal complex in Clevedon is finally over.

Last week the Environment Court overturned a Manukau City Council district plan change that would have allowed the 267-home canal development on the Wairoa River to go ahead.

Supported by environmental commissioners Marlene Oliver and Kevin Prime, Judge Gordon Whiting turned down the plan change on four core issues: The effects of the development on Maori and on natural character, the coastal environment, landscape and amenity and two issues relating to the Auckland regional policy statement.

Ms Whitehouse is the spokeswoman for community action group Clevedon Cares which opposed the development because of its "overwhelming" impact on the village and its people.

It was the "wrong development in the wrong place", she says.

"We would have ended up with something bigger than Clevedon five minutes up the road."

She says the court had to decide if the canal development was rural or urban and then judge it against the Auckland regional policy statement.

That defines urban development as "development which is not of a rural nature".

Clevedon is a rural area and sits outside the metropolitan urban limits.

for the full article see Papakura Courier