Helipads in residential areas are noisy, carbon emitting and dangerous.
I thought I had been around council politics so long that nothing would surprise me. Well, I was wrong about that as I found out at the recent Planning, Environment and Parks committee, but more about that later.
Helicopters and private helipads, the ear-shattering intrusion on neighbours' quiet enjoyment of their homes, has been a growing problem in Auckland for some years now – especially so in this maritime ward.
There have several high-profile cases in recent years in Herne Bay and Westmere where the Herne Bay Residents’ Association and Quiet Sky Waitematā have battled and are still battling resource consents for private helipads.
Three helipad consents are currently extant, and another is nearing conclusion with more rumoured in the pipeline. On Great Barrier there has been a rash of helipad consents over the last two years. Eleven so far, with one property owner being granted two, much to the dismay of neighbours and the Aotea Great Barrier Local Board.
On Waiheke, the situation is even worse with 61 helipads. The regulatory situation is complicated because Waiheke and Barrier planning rules are covered by the Hauraki Gulf Islands District Plan (HGIDP), while on the mainland it’s the Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP).
A further complication: on the islands, the activity class for helipads is ‘restricted discretionary’, whereas in the city it’s ‘non-complying’. In other words, helipad consents are much less regulated on the islands than they are in the city because council planners believed a permissive approach would promote high-end tourism.
Meanwhile, those who wrote the plans are even more influential in today’s Auckland Council and appear deeply invested in the status quo. Moreover, despite on-the-face-of-it ‘stricter’ rules applying in the city, consents are still granted without public notification, much to the frustration of residents and beach users having to put up with the noisy, dangerous, carbon emitting, comings-and-goings of their ‘Rich Lister’ neighbours.
As a response to community proceedings late in 2018, the High Court threw out the controversial Duke helipad-on-a-boat shed consent on the grounds of public safety. Judge Christine Gordon declared “… the notification decision is flawed and invalid, it must follow that the consent decision is also deficient and cannot stand.” A stinging criticism which evidently has had little effect on the council.
On the 30 March last year, I got an amendment through the planning committee requesting staff to report on how a plan change prohibiting helipads in residential areas could be included in the budget. Though it was carried by 14 votes to six, it was ‘slow-walked’ by staff. Last November, I decided to tackle the problem by dealing first with Great Barrier where the local board had a firm policy of prohibition in residential (settlement) areas, and advised management accordingly.
After reflection, I decided to postpone any move until after Christmas and just as well. In December, Waitematā Board reverted to its former policy preference of prohibiting helipads in residential areas and in February, Waiheke Local Board took a similar position. Knowing my intentions, management responded with a memo, a sort of ‘pre-emptive strike’, sent out to councillors and local board members just before Christmas.
This stated there would be no policy review until 2026. This was supported by a consultant’s report which asserted that prohibiting helipads in residential areas would be ‘difficult or impossible'.
This bureaucratic Catch 22 actually backfired; all it did was encourage Waitematā Local Board to double down on prohibited activity and Waiheke Local Board to do the same.
With the three boards and myself unanimously in agreement, on 4 March I wrote to management setting out my notice of motion which, to summarise, called on staff to prioritise plan changes to both the HGIDP and the AUP, to make helipads in residential areas on the islands and the mainland a prohibited activity, with the AUP status quo of ‘non complying’ applying everywhere else.
I asked City Vision councillor Kerrin Leonie to second. This, plus the City Vision presence on the Waitematā Local Board, notably Alex Bonham, led me to assume that City Vision-aligned councillors would naturally be in support. I was wrong.
Halfway through the meeting, City Vision’s Cr Julie Fairey handed out a set of amendments which she assured me were constructive. After reading them I found them benign though essentially cosmetic, doing nothing for Waitematā and, in my experience, very little for the islands. However, in the spirit of consensus, I was happy to include them in my motion.
That being agreed, Cr Fairey then announced she would be voting against my motion! In this she was supported by the other left ‘progressives’ except, to their credit, Cr Lotu Fuli and Cr Leonie. Predictably opposed to any change was Mayor Wayne Brown.
Sadly, my motion was lost eight votes to 10 while Cr Fairey’s amendment was carried unanimously. Therefore, essentially, the deeply unpopular status quo remains. This sort of political manoeuvring may be clever, but it does little for the reputation of politics and politicians, especially those purporting to be social and climate justice warriors. Sadly, its politics as usual and yet another Auckland Council fail. (MIKE LEE)
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Published: March 2024