Support slipway, or risk it being shut down!!!

[GTRPWR]

Hi all, posting on behalf of Ben Watson

Slipway Long Gully is applying to the Wellington City Council for funding to secure a Recreational Land use Consent.

You may or may not be aware that we have been served an Abatement Notice that states that all activities outside 'primary production activities' including but not necessarily limited to motorsport, mountain biking, motor cross, 4x4 and trailbiking are in breach of the Rural Area rules of the Wellington City Operative District Plan. We have been advised that we need to 'regularise' these activities under a resource consent or face prosecution.

We are endeavouring to get clubs and individuals whose members use the property to lend support to our application for funding or there is a very real possibility our property we have made available for recreational use over the last 19 years will be closed to the public by council.

If your club would lend support to this application it would be greatly appreciated and collectively we have a much stronger application.

In the first instance could you indicate your clubs support or otherwise of this application by replying to this email.

If you are happy for your club to be named as one of the joint applicants just let us know.

No doubt council will come back to us with a request for further information at which point we may also need a letter outlining your clubs use of the property.

If you wish to get behind Ben and Kelly and help keep slipway going. We ask for your words of support. This may be that you value the track for drift time and/or experience of just plain simple somewhere to go and have fun.
Please send your emails of support to the following address...

benkelly_Watson@hotmail.com

[Leon]

Harbour Capital Car Club has submitted a letter of support.

[GTRPWR]

Thanks Leon. The more the better, Ben has already had a meeting with the local mayor and she is all for slipway which is a big positive!

[thegreatestben]

Can't believe the council have done this. What a pack of wankers.
Red tape FTL

[d1 mule]

is it any use for someone like me to send an email in, iv never been to slipway as i live in chch but think it is an excellent facility that deserves and needs to be open to the public

more than happy to send a email if it wil help

[gurutasker]

Good to hear that the mayor is behind it. I'd say it's just some red tape that needs to be pushed through, and hope that it doesn't cause you too much trouble at all!

Also, if the council are unable to assist with funding there may be some other way or grants from places that may assist as well?

[rolla_fxgt]

It'll be a new resident in the area somewhere that has complained about it, and now council has to make it legit. If the mayor is behind it then you'll be pretty sweet. I imagine its just a matter of making sure all the t's are crossed

If you want to know who complained, then see who opposes it when its up for resource consent, if its a new house or one that was sold recently, then you have your nimby.


Good luck guys, hope it works out well for you. Never been to slipway, but have heard nothing but good things about it.

[frost]

is it any use for someone like me to send an email in, iv never been to slipway as i live in chch but think it is an excellent facility that deserves and needs to be open to the public

more than happy to send a email if it wil help

same here, def will support it if i can,

[fangsport]

if the whole area that is being used, is subject to the RMA, including the MTB/ATV/hiking etc areas, then collectively, but individually, if they are a club then they my be eligible for Lotteries type funding

[BZR4AGE]

Hi there, I am a town planner, perheaps I can be of some help.

For a start, all the advice so far are incorrect.

Every land air and water within New Zealand IS subject to the RMA.

The fact that you've got the support of other clubs will be no use to you.

Even if you have the mayor on your side, that isn't much help too, because at the end of the day, he/she don't really give the approval stamp on resource consents. A planner must be able to stand up in court and support their recommendation, not because a mayor say so.

The RMA is concerned with adverse effects. The only thing I see that can help your case in obtaining resource consent is if you get WRITTEN approval by all surrounding land owners. So unless the mayor lives next to the site, his/her support really means nothing. If written approval is obtain from surrounding land owners, then council must not consider the adverse effects on them when processing a resource consent application.

Once an abatement notice is serve, YOU MUST GET A RESOURCE CONSENT, so don't expect it to go away. Next one is an enforcement order, and that usually have a fine attached to it!

An abatement notice is basically asking you to stop what ever you are doing on the site and get the necessary resource consent. Usually council are quite flexible in this regard, as long as you can show that you are working towards it, they will let you continue to operate, but by this I mean you need to engage a town planner now and get them to sort it out.

What you need to do now is first determine what zoning applies to your land. Then check the rules to see what it permits. If its a residential zone, I doubt you will have luck getting consent. If its an industrial zone, there are possibilities provided that there are no reverse sensitivity issues. If its a open space recreation zone, then chances are you can do it, but are subject to a list of criteria, such as compliance with noise standards etc. Different council will have different zoning description, I myself am not familiar with Wellington District Plan, so can't tell you in this regard.

I would love to help, but I am leaving the country in 2 weeks. If you want I can quickly get together some preliminary research done and see how difficult it is for you to obtain consent. Give me the site address, and the exact activites that you do on the site..and I mean detail description of it for me to determine what rules applies to what.

In terms of cost estimate (I am not asking money here, just simply giving you an idea what things cost what so you can get an idea), for a non-notify resource consent, you are looking at 5-10K, for a fully publicly notify consent, expect to pay 10-50K. If it goes to environment court, expect to pay up to 100K. For motorsport.....sorry to say, but I will be surprise if it didn't get fully notified, or at least limited notification...which is roughly the same costs. (These costs inclusives of consultant planner for your side, and council planner's time).

[Leon]

I believe the intent of the request from the original poster is to gain a grant to raise funds for the resource consent, rather than to gain resource consent.

Good information there Mr BZR, albeit, scary

[BZR4AGE]

arrrr opps! sorry...skim reading late at night!

when I read it, it appears he was trying to get letters of support etc...I must have interpret it the wrong way. But anyhow, i can still help with some preliminary assessment if needed.

[Chelles]

Ok, so what sort of money are we talking here. If there is a request for financial support to pay for this we better get an idea of what is needed and them come up with some serious ideas to assist in that.

Can we have an idea please

Thanks
Chelles

[Leon]

Might be a plan to email Ben ... as he isn't a member here so far as I am aware, thus will not read your reply Chelles

Though, we're seeing him tomorrow anyway

[GTRPWR]

I have no idea on the acutal $ mark which is required. Ben is sourcing funding at the moment.
Of course the more people who get on board and support, the more chance he has to source funding.

[matt dunn]

Hi In terms of cost estimate (I am not asking money here, just simply giving you an idea what things cost what so you can get an idea), for a non-notify resource consent, you are looking at 5-10K, for a fully publicly notify consent, expect to pay 10-50K. If it goes to environment court, expect to pay up to 100K. For motorsport.....sorry to say, but I will be surprise if it didn't get fully notified, or at least limited notification...which is roughly the same costs. (These costs inclusives of consultant planner for your side, and council planner's time).

I know that the car club here a while ago changed one day on their resource consent from a Saturday to a Sunday,
and that was a 10 grand cost.

[BZR4AGE]

Hi In terms of cost estimate (I am not asking money here, just simply giving you an idea what things cost what so you can get an idea), for a non-notify resource consent, you are looking at 5-10K, for a fully publicly notify consent, expect to pay 10-50K. If it goes to environment court, expect to pay up to 100K. For motorsport.....sorry to say, but I will be surprise if it didn't get fully notified, or at least limited notification...which is roughly the same costs. (These costs inclusives of consultant planner for your side, and council planner's time).

I know that the car club here a while ago changed one day on their resource consent from a Saturday to a Sunday,
and that was a 10 grand cost.

Yea, generally that is probably because the noise limit on sunday is slightly lower compared with saturday. However, 10k for that is quite excessive for just switching the time, unless council requested a whole lot of other expert reports like traffic and noise etc etc, if the consultant planner was smart about it, they could have just first try to varied the consent conditons (i.e. change the conditions of the consent).

Regardless, if attempt to change the consent condition fails, then really is a whole new resource consent, as it needs the same assessment done etc etc. So if 10K was for a whole new consent, then thats reasonable.

I will just add that the RMA is suppose to be an enabling act, however throughout the years since 1991, its becoming more and more and more restrictive.