Now not the time to lodge land designation for Auckland light rail, board decides

Auckland Light Rail is holding off asking for land to be set aside for the mass-transit service despite being ready to do so - and a transport advocate says the delay confirms the project's uncertain future.

National has promised to dump Auckland's light rail project if it is elected later this year, but Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed light rail will be part of Auckland's future under a Labour-led government.

Designating land is the next big step for the light rail project and will reveal where stations are planned and exactly where an expected 600 properties need to be acquired.

Called notices of requirement, these would be lodged with Auckland Council, and protect land for a proposed public work or network utility.

Auckland Light Rail chief executive Tommy Parker said the decision of when to lodge this rests with the project's sponsors - government and council representatives.

"Lodging notices of requirement with Auckland Council to protect the land needed to build light rail is the next significant step in the project," Parker said.

"This is a fundamental milestone and has been a focus for our team and our work with communities and stakeholders during recent months."

Parker said Auckland Light Rail has presented its technical work to the board, which has noted that the work necessary to lodge the land designation requests has been completed.

"However, there have been some significant contextual shifts in recent months including a change in our authorising environment, with a number of new sponsors."

He said as a result, the board decided now was not the right time to lodge the land designation.

Parker said final decisions relating to the timing remains with sponsors, supported by advice from the board.

Meanwhile, he said Auckland Light Rail was continuing to progress the business case.

The government's preferred option was for tunnelled light rail connecting Auckland's city centre to the airport, via Sandringham Road, with an initial estimated cost of $14.6 billion.

A 2022 briefing paper to the Minister of Finance and then-Minister of Transport shows 601 properties would need to be acquired.

'It's pretty clear that's tied to the election'

Greater Auckland director Matt Lowrie said protecting the land was an important step and not lodging notices to do this shows how much uncertainty the light rail project faces.

"It's pretty clear that's tied to the election. The government will not want a big controversial notice of requirement going out because, for those people who are affected by it, they're going to be quite concerned about the impact it will have on their properties."

Lowrie said the location of the proposed stations was still unknown.

"It's concerning that we still don't know where stations will be and how deep they'll be and how we get to them."

The Sandringham Road area was known for its volcanic rock and he understood drilling had found that runs deep, he said.

"There's likely to be quite a bit of volcanic rock that's been discovered as part of drilling and that will cause concerns for how they build the tunnel and require changes to how they do that."

He said he understood Auckland Light Rail was doing more work to investigate the surface option, via Dominion Road, instead of underground through Sandringham.

"What's likely to happen is post election if Labour's in government or part of a coalition, to save some money they will cut that back to a surface option which is probably the better outcome anyway," he said.

"Alternatively if National get in they will likely cancel the project outright. They've said they will anyway."

Lowrie said Greater Auckland had crunched numbers to show that for the cost of both the light rail and recently announced second harbour crossing, the city could get 300 kilometres of surface light rail.

This was based on a build cost of $150-200 million per kilometre.

"We're talking a substantial network you could deliver for going for that surface option."