save the basin reserve!

Recently the Wellington City Council has been consulting on the heritage rules for residential property in the inner city neighbourhoods, with the aim of rationalising how heritage controls are applied. This has come about because the rules can be different depending on where you live - the controls in Thorndon are not the same as the ones in Mt Cook, for instance. This is part of District Plan Change 72 (DPC72), and like many other public and private groups the NZ Transport Agency has made a submission on the proposed rules.

It's astounding in its arrogance.

Minister of Culture and Heritage (and Wellingtonian) Chris Finlayson has washed his hands of any responsibility for the Basin Reserve precinct.

Last month the Mt Victoria Historical Society wrote to Minister Finlayson and asked him whether he was concerned about the impact of the NZ Transport Agency's planned flyovers on the heritage-listed Basin Reserve, the entrance to the Governor General's residence or the historic Mother Aubert's Home of Compassion.

Short answer: he doesn't give a toss.

The slightly longer answer is that Minister Finlayson thinks that responsibility for preserving the heritage of the precinct rests with the Historic Places Trust, not the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, even though the Ministry is responsible for the proposed Memorial Park in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Buckle Street. Confused? It gets worse.

As the astute may have noticed from the media, the Minister has begun the process of systematically gutting reviewing the Historic Places Trust, diminishing the amount of local branch involvement and reducing the Board to a collection of political appointees. So it's hard to have any confidence in the ability of the Historic Places Trust to protect the heritage of the area from the depredations of Steven Joyce's road-building frenzy.

And clearly the damage to this important area isn't keeping Chris Finlayson awake at night.

We've just received news that the NZ Transport Agency will be delaying the start of consultation on the Basin Reserve flyover until Monday 15 March 2010:

From: Wayne Hastie, GWRC
Further to the presentation to the Transport and Access Committee last week, we have been advised about a delay to the consultation process.
NZTA advise that "Because of a need to complete additional preparation work in conjunction with feasible options for the planned transport improvements around the Basin Reserve, it is now intended to commence public consultation on Monday 15 March, subject to NZTA Board approval."

On one hand, this is excellent news - it gives longer for the Save The Basin Reserve campaign to inform Wellingtonians about the dire plans the NZ Transport Agency has for the Basin.

On the other hand, it's another demonstration of how poor the NZ Transport Agency is at running projects. For professional project managers, the success (or otherwise) of a project is measured against time, cost and quality. Let's see how they're doing to date:

Time: Information was due to go to community groups in December 2009, and consultation has just been delayed. FAIL
Cost: In 2007 the flyover was costed at $27 million, and current estimates see it go as high at $97 million. FAIL
Quality: None of the options leaked to the media measure up to the innovative urban design from The Architecture Centre. FAIL

No wonder independent commentators are increasingly skeptical about the abilities of the NZ Transport Agency.

On Wednesday afternoon I was phoned by a couple of media outlets who were seeking comment about the alternative schemes for the Basin Reserve the NZ Transport Agency has been briefing to the various "stakeholders" - such as the Wellington City Council.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to provide much insight - as I explained to both reporters, I wasn't privy to the confidential briefings so had no knowledge about the detail of the designs. As had been widely reported earlier in the week, there were rumoured to be five designs including three flyovers, but that was as much as I knew.

One of the reporters (who will remain nameless for obvious reasons) helpfully gave me a rundown of what the three different designs for the flyovers will look like. I have no idea where the reporter got the information or how accurate it is, but for what it's worth I'll repeat it here. Given the detail the reporter provided, I'm assuming their source is fairly good (i.e. it's probably the NZTA), but this is pure conjecture on my part.

Updated: Based on what I was told, I've created a quick (and ugly) rendition of what the different alternatives might look like. These are over the fold, along with the details:

On Morning Report this morning (audio file), Cr John Morrison made some comments about the impact of the flyovers on the Basin Reserve, apparently in his capacity as the Wellington City Council's representative on the Basin Reserve Trust.

In his segment (at about the 1:37 mark) Cr Morrison claims to have been "in negotiation" with the Transport Agency. This is a very peculiar claim to make, given that NZTA claim exactly the opposite - in briefings to a wide range of community organisations, the Agency has said that there have been no special negotiations, and that all stakeholder groups are being treated equally. In fact, the Agency's communication people seem at pains to emphasise this very point.

So why is Cr Morrison apparently claiming to be party to negotiations that seem to have never occurred? Perhaps he can leave a comment and let us know.

And while I'm on the subject of Cr Morrison and his strange outbursts, I take exception to him describing the Save The Basin Campaign as "a political group serving it's own ends".

Perhaps John Morrison has failed to notice, but he's a politician. For him to criticise others as having a political agenda is an act of disingenuous hypocrisy, and it seems exceptionally unlikely that his reaction to the Basin Reserve flyover to date - one of lap-dog-like compliance with the Transport Agency's flyover plans - is motivated by anything other than his own political ambitions.

It's my view that Wellington's best interests would be served by Councillors who are attempting to save the Basin, rather than destroy it. I can only hope that Cr Morrison eventually comes around to the same view.

Rumours are flying that the NZ Transport Agency will begin consultation on the options for the Basin Reserve on Monday 22 February, and that five options will be presented - three involve building an unnecessary flyover, and two are "at grade", i.e. ground level without a flyover. Consultation will run for six weeks.

There has been a predictable reaction from the NZ Transport Agency to the Architecture Centre's innovative designs for the Basin Reserve - it's too hard and too expensive. According to the Capital Times:

The NZTA, is quick to dismiss the idea. "It would be a major engineering challenge to build a tunnel under the Basin Reserve - the ground conditions are very difficult and the water table is high. It would also be a expensive solution, and the necessary funding is not available", says Rob Whight, Wellington state highways manager.

So let's take a look at NZTA's claims.

Fresh from its consideration of the shape of the city in 2040, the Architecture Centre has taken a look at the Basin Reserve and come up with some innovative approaches. As they so eloquently put it:

The Basin Reserve for instance, may not need to be continuously ringed with roads for traffic. Indeed, we are most concerned that the Basin Reserve is currently reserved mainly for use as a giant traffic roundabout - there are better uses for a Basin than that, and there are certainly better roundabouts. But what if the traffic was to go elsewhere?

Their proposals display all the innovation and lateral thinking that seems so absent from the NZ Transport Agency and their flyover-obsessed traffic engineers. There are tunnels, enhanced green space, and genuinely fresh ideas that we hope will see the light of day when consultation on the Basin Reserve begins at the end of February.

Over on wellington.scoop Lindsay Shelton is asking how the NZ Transport Agency has become the object of so much contempt from local communities. He notes that even columnist Karl du Fresne at the Dominion Post is increasingly skeptical about the performance of this agency: