Awakino Point opponents are calling for the proposed $450 million Dargaville Racecourse development to be canned.
Grant McLeod (right foreground) and the Awakino Point Ratepayers Group want Dargaville racecourse development canned. Photo: Northern Advocate / Michael Cunningham
The racecourse neighbours say the major new development - one of Kaipara's biggest - will have at least half a dozen significant negative impacts, including creating a new satellite settlement separated from Dargaville services.
Awakino Point Ratepayers Group member Grant McLeod said the proposed new 450-dwelling settlement would suddenly bring about 1500 new residents into the middle of a currently mixed dairying, cropping and general farming area, 4 kilometres from Dargaville.
The opponents' call comes as Kaipara District Council (KDC) considers a $900,000 PGF-funded Private Plan Change application to rezone the site from rural to a development classification. Horses last raced on the 46.7 hectare former racecourse in 2016.
Awakino Point Ratepayers Group presented a 30-family petition against the private plan change to a recent online KDC council meeting. They want Kaipara District Council (KDC) to turn down the application.
The application, for a mixed residential, neighbourhood centre, open space and light industrial use, has been made by a tripartite of Dargaville Racing Club, Dargaville Community Development Board and Te Runanga o Ngāti Whātua. It went to KDC on 22 February. The council had until 1 April to decide on accepting or adopting the request.
Tracy Walters, representing Te Runanga o Ngāti Whātua, late last year told a KDC meeting the development offered a major opportunity for tangata whenua to be able to return to live in Northern Wairoa.
KDC strategy, policy and governance manager Michael Day said the council was working through the application to assess whether more information was required.
Day said public submissions would be part of the planning process around any potential proposal implementation if it was accepted by the council.
Horses last raced on the 46.7 hectare former racecourse in 2016. Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
McLeod said opponents wanted to get in ahead of that time, to ensure KDC was aware of their position whilst considering the application now.
McLeod said offering the land for public sale as four 12-hectare lifestyle blocks or leaving it as it is, a slightly larger-scale productive farming area, was the Awakino Point ratepayer group's preference.
The 40 percent-plus increase in Dargaville's population that would potentially result would place additional strain on Dargaville's already under-pressure water, power and sewerage infrastructure.
It would also dramatically increase the amount of traffic in and out of the location onto an already-busy State Highway 14. The development's designated State Highway 14/Awakino Point North Road main access would see traffic movements more than double to 2700 a day, compared with about 1000 at present, he said.
"The current Awakino Point North Road State Highway 14 intersection is already dangerous," McLeod said.
Developers have indicated a roundabout would be looked into for this junction.
McLeod said surface floodwater was not uncommon on the racecourse in winter.
Turning it into a residential and industrial settlement would bring major extra stormwater runoff. This would threaten lower-lying farms to the southeast of the racecourse as it drained into the Northern Wairoa River.
"The hard surfaces in the proposed development will massively change the characteristics of the stormwater runoff, especially during heavy rains," McLeod said.
"This will create higher impact when the farms flood further downstream," he said.
McLeod said opponents were also concerned about the risk of reverse sensitivity - where new residential property dwellers had to suddenly deal with the smells and sounds of a rural world they were not used to.
"Having high-density housing adjacent to working farms will be problematic concerning general farming activities - noise from livestock, harvesting machinery, heavy trucks, firearms, tractors, motorbikes and aircrafts. The smells from silage, effluent and agri-chemicals and dust," McLeod said.
Developers had told KDC the racecourse development would include about 450 houses - 156 of these separate units in a retirement village. House lots would be as small as 400 square metres, with a range of different living styles represented, including larger residential blocks on some of the land and also papakāinga housing. The average block size was 500 square metres with some 4000 square metres.
The proposed development would also mean the loss of an equestrian facility for the Silver Pine Pony Club which leased a site at the racecourse.
"We do not oppose development of the Dargaville racecourse site, but feel that the proposed 450 homes, including a retirement village, and light industrial activities is not best suited for this site," McLeod said.
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