Local Residents Want to Work with Council

By Frank Neill

Residents of Moy Place and Sue Avenue want to work with Kāpiti Coast District Council to ensure that access to a major new subdivision is via the old State Highway, Moy Place resident Lyall Payne told the 19 September meeting of the Ōtaki Community Board.

“Our aim is to work with the council on this,” Lyall said during the “public speaking time” part of the meeting.

The developer of the proposed subdivision had applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for approval of its subdivison plans, which include access via Moy Place.

That access would have a “quite significant effect” on Moy Place and Sue Avenue, Lyall said,

referring to the fact that it would lead to cars from 170-plus dwellings effectively moving through what is currently a quiet and peaceful area.

Sue Avenue and Moy Place residents “met with the Mayor [Janet Holborow] last Wednesday and she was very supportive and very helpful.

“We are now trying to get a meeting between Waka Kotahi, Kāpiti Coast District Council and local residents,” Lyall said.

“We are not trying to fight this development but we think it makes common sense for the access to come off the [old] main highway.”

Following the meeting Lyall told the “Ōtaki Mail” that residents of Moy Place and Sue Avenue had commissioned a traffic assessment report.

The report was made by Harriet Fraser, a chartered professional engineer specialising in traffic engineering and transportation planning.

This report says that access to the proposed subdivision should be onto the old State Highway and not via Moy Place and Sue Avenue.

“No one has come up with any sound logic as to why the access is not via [the old] State Highway, Lyall said.

“For us this isn’t a trivial matter,” another Moy Place resident, Phil McIntyre, told the meeting.

“We are talking about serious traffic movement.”

Kāpiti Coast District Council was currently working with an independent consultant to review the traffic impact of the proposed subdivision, the council’s Group Manager Strategy and Growth, Kris Pervan, told the meeting.

Ms Pervan also said that land between the end of Moy Place and the subdivison was currently zoned as reserve land.

Currently the council was “progressing nothing with rezoning of this piece of land, which would have to happen for there to be access through Moy Place,” she said.

Ms Pervin also said that the council intends to liaise with Moy Place and Sue Avenue residents.

“We want to engage.

“We want to work with the community,” she said.

The bush reserve in Raukawa Street, near the Ōtaki Medical Centre “is sadly neglected and needs attention,” Maud Logman told the community board, also during the “public speaking time” part of the meeting.

People had hacked into the bush.

She had recently removed 15 bundles of hacking from the bush area, she said.

The board’s Chair, Cam Butler, said he would like to meet with Maud at the reserve, and organised to ring her.

The Community Board also decided to provide funding to four orgnisations at its 19 September meeting.

It approved a community grant of $750 to the Amicus Club of Ōtaki to assist with the cost of

subsidising bus trips for their club members.

It approved a community grant of $500 to the Ōtaki Market to assist with the cost of running and purchasing props for a “Free Santa Photo Opportunity” at the upcoming Ōtaki Christmas Market.

It approved a community grant of $593.50 to Te Korowai Manaaki Charitable Trust to assist with the cost of purchasing Oamaru stone for its tamariki/rangitahi programme.

It approved a sporting activity grant of $500 to the Kāpiti Basketball Association to assist with the cost of the Kāpiti girls under 13 representative team attending the Basketball New Zealand AON regional tournament in October. All but one of the girls in the team live in Ōtaki.