Time to do Redoubt Road and Mill Road Again

Auckland Transport might as well avoid another Pohutukawa Six situation and just go back to the drawing board with the Mill Road – Redoubt Road Corridor Project. Southern Auckland knows the corridor upgrade is needed but not at the four lane, multi lane roundabout de-facto motorway that is being proposed currently by Auckland Transport.

Opposition to the scheme continues to increase, an earlier report on the corridor upgrade which suggested it could be done more cheaply and with better safety benefits than the current proposal has been dug up, and we have this:

From the NZ Herald

AT accused of bullying couple to sell house

By Mathew Dearnaley 5:00 AM Tuesday May 5, 2015

Council denies pressuring elderly pair to make way for new highway.

Council property agents have been warned off “bullying” an elderly couple into a rush sale of their home for a new highway parallel to the Southern Motorway.

Eva and Yiannis Koumaki say they are very worried after receiving a letter offering to buy their home in Goodwood Heights, Manukau, by the end of this month. The five-bedroom double-storey home they built 38 years ago after migrating from Crete is among 64 houses and a motel Auckland Transport says must make way for the first stage of a $470 million-plus four-lane highway eventually stretching 18km from Manukau to Drury via the Redoubt and Mill road corridors.

The council body says the highway is needed to serve about 22,000 new homes planned over the next 30 years. The properties could be compulsorily acquired under the Public Works Act.

But the Koumakis, who acknowledge inquiring about an early sale of their home on hardship grounds, say they were dismayed to receive a letter on March 20 offering an unacceptable price for vacant possession of the property by May 29.

……

Mrs Koumaki said it was unfair of Auckland Transport to restrict its offer to a market price, as the threat of the new road over the neighbourhood had depressed property sales.

Her plight has been taken up by the Redoubt Ridge Environmental Action Group, which arranged for lawyer Dilki Rajapakse to write to Auckland Transport chairman Lester Levy asking for “harassment” of the couple to stop.

Ms Rajapakse told Dr Levy the Koumakis had been “subjected to a barrage of telephone calls and [visits from] unwelcomed officials from Auckland Transport on the pretext of ‘helping'”.

“The bullying tactics and harassment of my clients by the officials must be stopped immediately,” she wrote.

AT property chief Deborah Godinet promised to review the case while instructing her team to make no further direct contact with the couple.

…..

Source and full article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11443195

Not on Auckland Transport by any means there. But then again the entire project is not on either especially for a 21st Century and The World’s Most Liveable City.

So how about we go back to the drawing board, get that old report out from the old Manukau City Council days and start over shall we?