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Basin Reserve flyover and Blogs

Just Basin Reserve flyover
    • Sore Losers: Nick Smith and the Government Water Down the Environmental Legal Assistance Fund
      • The rules of the Ministry for the Environment’s Environmental Legal Assistance Fund, which groups including Save the Basin have used to help fund legal challenges to infrastructure projects, have now been changed so that such applications can be arbitrarily declined, by: The inclusion of a new criterion to consider whether providing ELA funding to the applicant for its involvement in the legal proceedings, will contribute to impeding or delaying the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic and cultural well-being in relation to important needs, including employment, housing and infrastructure.   I was rung by a Stuff journalist about this and responded on behalf of Save the Basin: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94323541/quiet-change-to-public-fund-for-environmental-legal-challenges A subsequent exchange in Question Time (see below) makes it very clear that Nick Smith had the Government’s Basin Reserve flyover defeat in mind when he made this move. Nick Smith and the Government appear to think that fits of pique make good public policy. We beg to differ. Question Time 9. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: By how much has annual funding for the Environmental Legal Assistance Fund been cut since 2013/14? Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The budget this year is $600,000 per year, as it was last year and the year before. For the 4 years prior to that the budget was $800,000 per year but was repeatedly underspent. The spend in 2013-14 was $555,000, and the average actual spend was $520,000. As much as I like the Minister of Finance, I do not like under-spending my vote so I reduced the budget in 2015-16 and transferred it to increased support for collaborative processes. This is also consistent with our blue-green philosophy of supporting people to find solutions rather than spending it on legal aid to fight disputes. Eugenie Sage: Can he confirm that he created a new criterion for the fund recently so that community groups wanting to challenge council decisions in the courts are likely to be denied funding if their case might “impede or delay” a development project? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, I have changed the criteria. A new consideration is the issue of housing and infrastructure. The Government makes no apologies for making it harder for groups to get Government money to stop houses and infrastructure from being built. It does not prevent funding being provided in those sorts of cases, but it requires the panel to give consideration to the broader public interest. It simply does not make sense for the Government to be using public money to stop transport projects being built and stop houses being built with legal aid funding. Eugenie Sage: Does he believe that Forest & Bird would have received funding to mount a legal challenge to Bathurst Resources’ proposed coalmine on the Denniston plateau if this new criterion had been in place? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There is an independent panel that makes the decisions on the issue of the legal aid. What I have added to the criteria is that, alongside the environmental things, issues like infrastructure, jobs, and housing have to be a consideration. But it still will be an independent consideration for the panel. Eugenie Sage: Can he confirm that last year he gave himself the power to decide which cases and which community groups would get environmental legal aid, stripping this power away from the Ministry for the Environment’s chief executive? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Each year Ministers make a decision about the level of delegations. In this particular case, I decided not to delegate to the Ministry for the Environment, albeit I note that I followed the panel’s advice in every case. In the event that I do not follow the panel’s advice it will be a matter of open public record. Eugenie Sage: Why will he not just own the fact that his Government is trying to stop legal challenges that might impede environmentally destructive development, like the coalmine on the Denniston plateau, the Ruataniwha Dam, and the Basin Reserve flyover? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I know of many Wellingtonians who would be concerned that the Government was spending money on stopping roading through to the airport being constructed with legal aid funds. So the Government has deliberately put into the environmental legal aid criteria that the panel needs to consider issues like infrastructure and housing. To quote the Minister for Infrastructure: “We are the infrastructure Government.”, and we want to see New Zealanders being able to get around and have a roof over their heads.9. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: By how much has annual funding for the Environmental Legal Assistance Fund been cut since 2013/14? Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The budget this year is $600,000 per year, as it was last year and the year before. For the 4 years prior to that the budget was $800,000 per year but was repeatedly underspent. The spend in 2013-14 was $555,000, and the average actual spend was $520,000. As much as I like the Minister of Finance, I do not like under-spending my vote so I reduced the budget in 2015-16 and transferred it to increased support for collaborative processes. This is also consistent with our blue-green philosophy of supporting people to find solutions rather than spending it on legal aid to fight disputes. Eugenie Sage: Can he confirm that he created a new criterion for the fund recently so that community groups wanting to challenge council decisions in the courts are likely to be denied funding if their case might “impede or delay” a development project? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, I have changed the criteria. A new consideration is the issue of housing and infrastructure. The Government makes no apologies for making it harder for groups to get Government money to stop houses and infrastructure from being built. It does not prevent funding being provided in those sorts of cases, but it requires the panel to give consideration to the broader public interest. It simply does not make sense for the Government to be using public money to stop transport projects being built and stop houses being built with legal aid funding. Eugenie Sage: Does he believe that Forest & Bird would have received funding to mount a legal challenge to Bathurst Resources’ proposed coalmine on the Denniston plateau if this new criterion had been in place? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There is an independent panel that makes the decisions on the issue of the legal aid. What I have added to the criteria is that, alongside the environmental things, issues like infrastructure, jobs, and housing have to be a consideration. But it still will be an independent consideration for the panel. Eugenie Sage: Can he confirm that last year he gave himself the power to decide which cases and which community groups would get environmental legal aid, stripping this power away from the Ministry for the Environment’s chief executive? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Each year Ministers make a decision about the level of delegations. In this particular case, I decided not to delegate to the Ministry for the Environment, albeit I note that I followed the panel’s advice in every case. In the event that I do not follow the panel’s advice it will be a matter of open public record. Eugenie Sage: Why will he not just own the fact that his Government is trying to stop legal challenges that might impede environmentally destructive development, like the coalmine on the Denniston plateau, the Ruataniwha Dam, and the Basin Reserve flyover? Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I know of many Wellingtonians who would be concerned that the Government was spending money on stopping roading through to the airport being constructed with legal aid funds. So the Government has deliberately put into the environmental legal aid criteria that the panel needs to consider issues like infrastructure and housing. To quote the Minister for Infrastructure: “We are the infrastructure Government.”, and we want to see New Zealanders being able to get around and have a roof over their heads.
      • Accepted from Save the Basin posts by feedreader
      • Tagged as:
      • water
      • government
      • airport
      • wellington
      • art
      • housing
      • sport
      • people

        • Wellington International Airport, Coutts Street, Rongotai, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6023, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Mind the gap
      • People have rightly asked me my positions on transport, the environment, the Basin Reserve flyover, and libraries.    These weren’t put in my manifesto in April 2013 because I assumed that they would not be hot election issues, and that candidates (whomever they might be—since only Dr Keith Johnson had declared then) would have largely [...]
      • Accepted from Jack Yan posts
      • Tagged as:
      • libraries
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Basin Pavilion and Spine Study
      • I did have a small post scheduled for tomorrow morning, but the release of both of these today sort of takes precedence! It never rains, but it pours! Seems kind of appropriate, considering the weather we have been having lately. So: seeing as the Basin Reserve “mitigation” study / blatant bribe to the Reserve Trust has been released, and the Passenger Transport Spine study, and the material for the EPA from NZTA have all been released today (there is no coincidence here, it’s all been carefully planned out), and that’s just al too much for me to post on – I thought I’d just throw it open for you to comment on.
      • Accepted from Eye of the Fish feed
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Flyover vote
      • Later today the Council will vote on their support of the flyover. Related to this, an interesting tidbit came out yesterday and almost slipped me by: “Steps to move state highway traffic off Vivian St are among measures needed to ease the impact of a Basin Reserve flyover, Wellington City Council says.” Holy-moly. That’s new. Up until now some Councilors have been willing to admit privately that the way the Ngauranga to Airport “strategy” completely ignores Vivien Street is absurd. But the Council in an official capacity has, as far as I know, never said anything to this effect before.
      • Accepted from Eye of the Fish feed
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover
      • wellington-city-council

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Where the #$%& are the bike lanes already?
      • We’ve had a bicycle-mad mayor for two years now and I don’t think I’ve seen one new bike lane, or any real indication that the council still even gives two hoots about cyclists and pedestrians. In fact our transport planning has just become, frankly, bizarre. For example our city council, regional council, and NZTA apparatchiks seem to think it’s a suitable use of millions of dollars of public money to tack on a dubious pedestrian-walkway-cum-cycleway to the Basin Reserve flyover, so that we can walk and cycle from the tunnel to the bypass. You know, because there’s such a huge amount of people walking and cycling around the city rather than to the city. It’s a route that is barely used for obvious reasons and will remain that way, even if they do actually fix the cycleway so that it is a proper cycleway and not just some bike-shaped-stencils painted onto a sidewalk*.
      • Accepted from Eye of the Fish feed
      • Tagged as:
      • cycling
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Option X
      • Following on from the usual tired old grumpy pro-road editorial in the Dom Post, which came to the conclusion that pursuing Option X would be a waste of time, perhaps it is time for a less jaded eye to look at the arguments for, and against. First up, and to some, most importantly, i guess that we have to address the question of cost. The DomPost identifies that Option X may cost up to $165m, which does sound like a heck of a lot of money, and says that the “agency’s preferred option” would only cost $75m. Well, that’s a slam dunk right there, isn’t it? One option more than twice as much as the other? Those damn pesky architects proposing being profligate with the public purse? Except that, no, i reckon that the Dom Post figures are wrong.
      • Accepted from Eye of the Fish feed
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Double Banger
      • Consultation on the NZTA’s solutions for “roading improvements” around the Basin and through to the Airport (the tail end of State Highway 1, if you will), closes today. I’ve been taking a bit of a back seat on this, watching from the sidelines as the alternative proposal put forward by the Architectural Centre “Option X” [...]
      • Accepted from Eye of the Fish feed
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover
      • consultation

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Yesterday’s Solution
      • In 2011, you would think two considerations would be central to transport planning; the need to reduce carbon emissions and dependence on oil. Think again… The New Zealand Transport Agency has released for consultation its scheme for the inner city section (Cobham Drive to Buckle St) of its grand Levin to Wellington Airport superhighway. What the scheme amounts to is a road building extravaganza that reeks of the 1960s and 1970s. The salient point about NZTA’s consultation is that it offers no choice. The key projects including a flyover at the Basin Reserve and a second Mt Victoria Tunnel are a fait accompli. So the public is not given any meaningful options, such as the public transport alternative.
      • Accepted from Sustainable Wellington Transport posts
      • Tagged as:
      • light-rail
      • basin-reserve-flyover
      • consultation

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Grandstanding
      • We’d heard rumours at the Fish HQ of a proposed sweetener deal of a Grandstand, but have been caught off the hop by this – I didn’t think it was going to surface just yet. It is a curious proposal – and all seems rather Fishy to me. In a country notorious for its distain for, and freedom from corruption, is this the first openly blatant case of bribery on a large scale?
      • Submitted by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • A Viable Arch Centre Alternative?
      • We’re part of the way through the public “consultation” phase of the NZTA schemes for “improvements” around the Basin Reserve, and so far we’ve only heard one side of the story. For whatever reasons, political, Machiavellian, or incompetence, only the “two options” have been proffered to the public by the roading lobby. That’s a real [...]
      • Submitted by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • consultation
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Boulevards
      • After a couple of posts looking at the proposed concretisation of the car’s dominance over nature, with a 6 lane highway racing through Haitaitai and an overpass through / over / around the Basin Reserve, all courtesy of the NZTA, perhaps it is time to look at somebody else’s vision for the streets of Wellington. Why don’t we have a look at this image, number 3 in the series, on Boulevards.
      • Submitted by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover
      • architecture
      • second-mount-victoria-tunnel

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Fishing the Basin
      • The Wellington Civic Trust is holding a Seminar this coming weekend on “Round About the Basin“, with a grand line-up of speakers and presentations so that everyone can have their say. The question still remains: “is anyone in power actually going to be listening?” - to which almost certainly the answer will be “lip service only.” It’s great that the Civic Trust takes it on itself to do these kind of things, although really it should be the job of the Council to talk to the people and gauge their views, and just occasionally take on their recommendations.
      • Tagged as:
      • basin-reserve-flyover

        • Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


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