Subscribe to RSSManners Mall Appeal Hearing In Few Weeks
The controversial plan to allow a bus route in central Wellington’s Manners Mall has stalled.
In a few weeks, the environment court will hear an appeal against the council’s December decision to revoke Manners Mall’s pedestrian status and go ahead with the project.
No turning into Manners yet
The council’s project manager, Suzanne Enyon, says that despite the appeal, some planning work is continuing, including the detailed design for lower Cuba Street. “We strongly believe this project has major benefits and want to be ready to go if the Environment Court supports the Council’s decision, which we’re very hopeful it will,” she said.
“The project will allow us to further improve the main public transport route through the city, help improve bus reliability, provide new public spaces and improve pedestrian links to Civic Square and the waterfront - things we think will improve the city and the way it functions.”
Others think differently, and want their day in court.
9 Comments
While I am all for pulic participation, how can someone appeal a Council decision on the use of their own (Council’s) space?
I may be missing some details here, but on the face of it this looks a bit ridiculous. The appropriate way to deal with this if you don’t like it is to lobby against it, or lobby against the decisionmakers come election time.
Max, I assume some sort of resource consent was necessary to turn a pedestrian mall into a bus-lane. If consent was required, and then granted, then the right to appeal it exists.
The RMA changes last year came down harshly on frivolous and vexatious appeals.
So did Council give itself consent for doing something it wants to do? Weird.
And why would using transport space for transport purposes need a consent in the first place? It should be a “permitted”-class activity, shouldn’t it?
An unemployed Wellington man who is a well known protestor against many things… has been loudly protesting the Manners plans. He went to the Supreme Court for a judicial review ( to review the process by which the decision was made) which dismissed his appeal but left the door for him to appeal to the Environment Court so he is. He claims the Wellington City Council did not consult the community about the impact of revoking the mall’s pedestrian status and had not undertaken the special consultative procedure needed to make the change lawful.
This is the guy here
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/3370908/Manners-Mall-activist-deliberately-on-dole-may-be-told-to-get-a-real-job
Max, I imagine getting rid of a pedestrian mall would require some level of resource consent. As it should. Imagine if council decided it wanted to turn Vulcan Lane back into a road, for example?
Jon C, if that guy’s appeal is frivolous and vexatious then he will get nailed by the court. No doubt about it.
Jarbury, I don’t fully agree. If it is Council-owned land, zoned for transport, they should be able to do it without going through the ridiculous process of officially checking whether they themselves agree with their own opinion.
I am strong on public accountability, and even more so on the public “voting the bastards out” when things go wrong. But we should not drive consult-itis and RMA processes to the extreme. Pedestrian mall or shared space or bus lane - all are transport uses, and should be permitted activities.
Manners Mall is ugly and full of fast food, it will good to turn into a busway
Max, as I said it depends on the activity status of the proposal. Auckland City Council, for example, require resource consent for a number of aspects of their future Fort Street shared space upgrades. Often this relates to issues such as development in proximity to heritage buildings, if any new structures need to be built within the road reserve and so on.
Many councils designate their roads, which can make the process a bit simpler.
This is not about the RMA or zoning, and no resource consent is involved.
Revoking the pedestrian-only nature of Manners Mall to allow buses through requires a special consultation process under the Local Government Act to get the views of the community, and that’s what’s been happening (though not correctly, according to the appellant).