Developer Charles Ma says KiwiRail's plans to build a new station in Drury west, 1.5 km from his company's Auranga development, defies "common sense".
Developer Charles Ma is disputing the location of a new train station KiwiRail is planning to build in Drury west. Photo: Supplied
But the government-owned rail operator says it weighed up its options and came to the best result for the area.
Ma is the chief executive of Ma Development Enterprises (MADE) and the managing director of the Auranga development, a subdivision on the outskirts of Drury West in south Auckland which is set to bring up to 3000 new homes to the area over the next five years.
The government earmarked $247 million for two new train stations, a bus and rail interchange and park and ride facilities in Drury as part of its New Zealand Upgrade Programme announced in January last year.
The new train stations will include one in Drury West, where Ma's development is located, and one in Drury Central, with construction expected to start in 2023.
But debate over where KiwiRail plans to locate the Drury West station has become a point of contention between Ma and the organisations involved, and it doesn't appear he's planning to back down anytime soon.
KiwiRail, in partnership with the Supporting Growth Alliance (which includes Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and Auckland Transport) identified three locations for the new station.
But their preferred option is some distance away from Ma's development and, critically, across from the major intersection of Jesmond Rd and SH22.
Ma said this would present a major hurdle for Auranga residents and workers accessing the transport hub.
The option favoured by KiwiRail to the west of Jesmond Rd would require people to cross a bridge, which hasn't even been built yet, he said.
"It's over 1 km away from where the jobs zone and business park are going to be located. People will get off the trains in the middle of nowhere."
Ma said the company's preference is for the station to be located east of the proposed SH22 North connection, but he claims it has struggled to get the planners to see "common sense".
He said it's not about just suiting Auranga, but about helping the long-term development of Drury.
"We're in favour of any of the options on the eastern side of Jesmond Rd," Ma said.
He wouldn't rule out taking legal action over the location of the Drury West station.
But in a statement KiwiRail chief operating officer for capital projects David Gordon said the short-listed options were assessed using strict criteria.
This included meeting the primary objective of supporting the area's future development, together with considering the environmental and economic impact and operational and technical effects on rail operations of the locations.
"The process to assess options for station locations began in 2016 with high-level considerations of a number of general locations," Gordon said.
"In 2020, following the announcement of Crown funding to KiwiRail for the construction of stations under the New Zealand Upgrade Programme (NZUP), Te Tupu Ngātahi Supporting Growth Alliance, in partnership with KiwiRail, continued to more accurately define the optimum locations for new train stations for Drury and Paerata."
He said after a series of workshops a site 450m south of the existing intersection of SH22/Karaka Road and Jesmond Road was agreed upon as the preferred option for the Drury West station.
But Gordon said there was still a lot of work to do before major construction can begin.
"This includes working through the property acquisition process, continuing design and securing the necessary consents for the stations."
Auckland Council planning committee chairman Chris Darby said he wasn't concerned by the preferred location of the station reached by KiwiRail and the Supporting Growth Alliance.
"They've looked at the location options for the Drury stations. There have been a lot of challenges and it's been highly contested," Darby said.
"But I'm confident that through a really rigourous process that they have landed on the right locations."
Despite Ma's protests it has had to agree on a location that met the area's future needs, he said.
"It's not about suiting a single land user."
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