The Post
Nicky Hager
May 3, 2023.
Nicky Hager is a Wellington author and investigative journalist. He has taken an interest in the fate of Shelly Bay and Mt Crawford for many years before the current events.
OPINION: In 2015, National Cabinet minister Nick Smith granted special “housing affordability” fast-track consent for a private housing development in Wellington’s Shelly Bay. Years of trouble followed.
The Shelly Bay fast-track should never have been granted, since the housing planned was millionaire apartments, not affordable housing (meaning affordable by a person with limited means).
But, once approved, the fast-track legislation suspended normal planning laws, and cut the public and iwi out of having any substantial say on the unpopular plan.
A 525-day Māori land occupation, three court cases taken by local businesses, and numerous public meetings and other activities organised by local people opposed the development; an outpouring of democratic effort. But, thanks to the fast-track law, it has been so far all in vain.
We might hope that everyone concerned has learnt from Smith’s ill-conceived decision. But no. This unhappy history is now being repeated, with a second housing proposal based on misuse of another piece of fast-track legislation, just a stone’s throw from Shelly Bay on the old Mt Crawford prison site.
Graffiti on the Wellington City Council “sawtooth” building at Shelly Bay, thought to have been painted by opponents of the controversial “affordable housing” development there. (File photo)
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This time, the decision will be made by a Labour Cabinet minister, David Parker, determining if the project should be cleared to go before an expert panel for fast-track consideration.
The latest application sounds like a joke, except that it could well be accepted. The Mt Crawford developers have applied under special legislation created in the darkest days of the Covid pandemic to try to stop the construction industry collapsing and the country sinking into economic recession.
The special legislation, suspending normal planning processes for certain projects, was justified to help avert this feared disaster.
As we now know, the construction industry did not collapse and in fact has been booming. Far from being out of work, it’s hard to find a builder.
There is therefore no justification for using Covid legislation to dodge normal planning processes for the controversial 700-dwelling Mt Crawford development.
It is no coincidence that there are two controversial housing developments in the same area, both using fast-track legislation that wasn’t intended for developments like this and both publicly fronted by a group of local iwi against the wishes of other iwi.
Back in 2015, property developer Ian Cassels went on a business promotion trip to China, which resulted in “a partnership to explore funding for proposals for … housing developments in Shelly Bay”.
An artist’s impression from 2019 of the development planned for Shelly Bay.
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On that trip, or around that time, he produced a brochure showing artists’ impressions of two linked housing developments he intended to build on the Miramar Peninsula. One was at Shelly Bay. The other was at Mt Crawford.
The scale and location of the two housing developments that eventuated are what he planned. What appears to be playing out is his long-prepared plan. Finding ways to fast-track his way through planning laws has been part of his MO.
It was Cassels’ The Wellington Company that applied for the Shelly Bay affordable housing fast-track approval, and it is Cassels’ The Wellington Company that has prepared the application for the Covid fast-track at Mt Crawford.
In both cases he has let iwi trust board members front for his plans, claiming they are iwi projects. But in each case the big money is the multi-hundred-million-dollar construction work. The profits from nearly all of the construction at Shelly Bay and, he hopes, Mt Crawford will go to companies owned by Cassels and his wife.
A fast-track consent is not only fast. It strips away everyone else’s rights to have an influence over decisions affecting them. It is a blunt tool that should be used very sparingly.
There is no good reason for Parker to use Covid crisis legislation to trump the public’s and iwi’s right to help determine the future of this important piece of public land.
If a new housing area – isolated from most transport, shops and social services at the end of a narrow windy road – is really good for the city, let it go through normal RMA processes like everyone else’s proposals.
Graffiti protesting against development plans for both Shelly Bay and near-by Mt Crawford, dawbed around the site of the old Mt Crawford prison. (File photo)
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Likewise, if the natural, recreation and heritage values of this land are genuinely outweighed by the value of the development, the developer has nothing to fear from public processes.
But actually, isolated hill suburbs are not the modern way to intensify housing in a city. Plus, Wellington people have other plans for Mt Crawford and Shelly Bay, as entranceways to a new national heritage park jutting out into Wellington harbour. A poll late last year found that 78% of Wellingtonians prefer the park option.
Members of the iwi say that Parker has been invited by the trust board to visit the Mt Crawford site in the near future. Essentially, this would be an opportunity for the minister to be lobbied by an interested party.
He would presumably not be meeting opponents of the development to hear their side. Whatever he was told by the promoters would be one-sided and non-contestable.
There is no evidence in the legislation to suggest this is his role. Māori development is not among the section 19 purposes of the Covid legislation. It feels improper to invite him.
But the most important issue is using Covid legislation at all, years after the feared crisis did not eventuate. The applicants are asking the minister, on these spurious Covid-recovery grounds, to deprive locals and dissenting iwi permanently of their rights.
It would be a rerun of the unfair and divisive process seen at Shelly Bay. Surely we can do better.
– The Post