Housing not an option for Tauranga Racecourse land

Using the Tauranga Racecourse land for housing has been taken off the table, with Tauranga City Council commissioners removing it as an option for future use of the site.

At a meeting on Monday the commissioners chose three options, from 10, to put out for public consultation and removed residential housing options from further consideration.

The 85-hectare Greerton Racecourse Reserve is currently occupied by Racing Tauranga, Tauranga Equestrian Sports Association and the Tauranga Golf Club.

Racing Tauranga and Tauranga Golf Club's leases on the crown reserve land expire in 2039.

The council's investigation into the best future use of the land is called the Greerton Maarawaewae Study.

Its purpose is to identifying opportunities that support wellbeing and liveability as Tauranga grows as well as providing certainty to the current users.

Housing was one of the options touted for the site but it was met disapproval from current users and mana whenua, who want the land to retain its reserve status.

Mana whenua, Ngāi Tamarāwaho hapū representatives lodged a claim via the Treaty of Waitangi Act in February.

Hapū representative Buddy Mikaere previously told Local Democracy Reporting if the status were to change to enable housing for example, that would trigger the claim.

The land was confiscated after the Battle of Gate Pa in 1865 and because the land was being used for public good the hapū did not pursue it as part of its Treaty settlement, Mikaere said.

After the meeting, he said he was "very pleased to see housing off the table".

The nine-month-long Greerton Maarawaewae Study included two rounds of public consultation, with this feedback included when weighing the options.

During the meeting council urban communities programme director Carl Lucca said there was "very limited sport within the community" for any of the housing options.

Lucca said the site is strategically located on the Te Papa peninsula corridor, close to the heart of the city.

"The central corridor is expected to see some of the most significant transformation in the sub region over the next 30 years, with a higher frequency public transport system and higher densities along the corridor, especially in areas around the hospital," he said.

Commissioner Shadrach Rolleston said he "liked" the recommendation to remove housing because having housing identified in planning documents "created some uncertainty particularly for current users".

In September 2020 the land was included in the Te Papa Spatial Plan.

One of the motions the commissioners voted for was to remove reference to 'comprehensively developed housing' as it relates to the Greerton Racecourse Reserve from the Te Papa Spatial Plan and other relevant strategic documents.

Commission chair Anne Tolley said the only certainty in the recommendations was that housing was removed from those planning documents.

She said the documents had "created significant uncertainty without a mechanism to resolve that uncertainty" for current users.

"I think a lot of people will breathe a sigh of relief," Tolley said. "It doesn't do much to alleviate our housing shortage."

"It's important to remember that this is really long-term planning, that we have people in place with leases that are out 2039," she said.

Tolley said it was "like a jigsaw puzzle" because council was asking the community what they see the land being used for as well as how Racing New Zealand see future use of the site and Health New Zealand, alongside mana whenua.

"We are trying to put all of that together and give some certainty to the poor old current users, who are in the middle of all of that," she said.

The three options council will put out for consultation are: option one health services and a central park with a community centre and active recreation that would revert to the central park if Health New Zealand decided it did not want the site. This is council's preferred option.

Option two is a central park with active reaction and a community centre and option three is enhanced status quo adding active recreation and possibly a community centre to the site.

Option one and two would require the racecourse and equestrian to be relocated while enhanced status quo would mean all current users can remain.

Bay of Plenty District Health Board CEO Pete Chandler said the DHB Board had been working closely with the Health NZ Infrastructure Unit on campus planning over the last year.

"Our business case for a new clinical services building contains a number of essential components including strategising proposed future models of care, options appraisals, and financials; and we are currently working through the clinical services plan component," he said.

Chandler said the business case would also consider a greenfield build option if suitable land was available.

Lucca said the initial 10 options were evaluated using multi-criteria assessment that gave different weightings to the strategic needs of the city as well as the public feedback.

Consultants placed 20 percent weight on future health needs, 25 to 30 percent to housing, 25 to 30 percent on green space and active recreation, 10 percent to existing stakeholders and 15 to 20 percent to cost.

Using the criteria, the top option weighted both with and without costs was health services and recreation.

Lucca said the three shortlisted options were chose from community feedback.

Tolley said they had "pivoted slightly" at the last meeting in April and decided to go out for formal consultation again on a narrower set of options.

Consultation is proposed from mid-July to mid-August with public hearings in October.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air