Architects and local groups are outraged by Auckland Council plans for Ports of Auckland to extend its reach by almost 100 metres into Waitemata Harbour.

Works to expand the current Auckland port will start in April, after Auckland Council voted in favour of more generous rules allowing expansion over the seabed on 26 February. 

President of the NZIA, Pip Cheshire, says that the Council’s plans is not consitent with its “most liveable city vision” and although the operation of the port is vital to the city, so too is the aesthetic quality of the harbour.

“The Waitemata Harbour is critical to the Council’s stated ambition to make Auckland the world’s most liveable city. For many Aucklanders, a big part of what makes their city liveable right now is the harbour.”

“Auckland Council is charged with the ordered development of the city, balancing economic imperatives with other factors affecting the well-being of the city,” Cheshire says. 

“With their approval of the wharf extension, the Council has got this balance wrong.”

However head of communications at Ports of Auckland Matt Ball says Auckland’s liveability also includes being able to buy things at a reasonable price and without an efficient port, this becomes difficult.

“We handle 61 per cent of Auckland’s imports, and that’s a lot of stuff: the goods in our shops; the cars we drive; Auckland’s new trains; building materials, including all the cement used in Auckland construction.

“These things help make our city more liveable and they all come in through the port. If they had to go through another port they would have to come to Auckland by road and rail, which would push up the price, the carbon footprint and increase the number of trucks on our roads,” Ball says.

The council-owned company intends to create two new wharf structures on either side of the Bledisloe terminal. One will extend an additional 98 metres into the Waitemata Harbour, the other 92 metres. The company gained permission for the development through non-notified consent, upsetting those with an interest in the city’s harbour, including architect David Mitchell.

“Ports of Auckland is not a caretaker of the harbour. It is the city’s biggest property developer. To Ports of Auckland the harbour bed is the cheapest development land to be found and [the company] pays nothing for it,” Mitchell says.

“It is even cheaper for the company to fill in the harbour and park imported cars on it, than to build a multi-storey parking building on existing land. Ports of Auckland has a long history of sacrificing every other consideration to immediate financial expediency.

“If parking cars on pieces of filled-in harbour is the answer, the wrong question has been asked.”