Locals up in arms

BY IMOGEN NEALE

Go hard and be relentless - that's the advice Ramarama residents have given to another group fighting a quarry company's plans to sends trucks up and down their rural road.

Fitzgerald Rd residents have formed an action group to try to fight plans by Stevenson, the company that runs the Drury quarry, to use their road as access to its new industrial park.

When Stevenson released the concept plan for the 419-hectare park late last year it showed
Fitzgerald Rd and nearby Fielding Rd as potential future connections between the park and
the proposed Mill Rd traffic corridor.

At the southern end, the plan took in Ramarama, McEldownie and Davies roads and included the acquisition of several properties.

Ramarama Rd residents Mike and Leanne George found out their home and business were within the project boundaries only when the concept plan arrived in their letterbox.

"It came with a letter saying there was a meeting at 4pm that day," Mr George says.

"It didn’t arrive in the letterbox until 4.30pm."

That afternoon other neighbours called into the Georges and they
all had the same question: "Have you seen this?"

Neighbour Herman Smeets says at first he thought the concept plan was a calendar.

"I thought who the hell sends you a calendar in September so I threw it away," he says.

He did read the attached letter though and then dashed up to the Ramarama Hall just as the meeting was drawing to a close.

"I went home and talked to my wife and said: ‘Why should we move’?" he says.

Over the next few months Mr George and Mr Smeets formed the Ramarama Resistance group
and the website www.ramarama.net.

Armed with yellow placards they and other concerned locals protested on a roundabout at the entrance to Stevenson’s Drury quarry and outside Ramarama School.

They posted video footage and photos of their protests to the website and included a submission form for people to download and send to Stevenson.

Mr Smeets says Stevenson Properties chief executive Stephen Hughes asked him to arrange a community meeting at the local hall so company representatives could talk to locals about the project.

The meeting was scheduled to start at 7pm but at 4pm Mr Smeets got a call from Stevenson cancelling the company’s attendance.

Mr Smeets says he had to front up to all the locals gathered in the hall and apologise on Stevenson’s behalf.

A few weeks later Mr Hughes asked for another community meeting at the same time and venue. But again Mr Smeets says the phone rang at 4pm with the company calling to cancel.

Mr George and Mr Smeets each met Mr Hughes on separate
occasions to discuss the valuation of their properties and compensation.

After a month of
to-ing and fro-ing Mr Hughes presented
both couples with
an offer that was 10 percent above valuation.

In mid-November Mr Hughes visited the Georges with good news – it was likely the project’s boundary was moving back to Willow Rd thus taking the Georges property out of the equation.

The move also meant the project was now only in the Papakura District Council’s jurisdiction.

"We feel it only happened because we protested," Mrs George says.

"If we hadn’t jumped up and screamed about it nothing would have happened."

Her advice to Fitzgerald Rd residents is "if you’re totally passionate about this you need to make some noise".

On March 1, Stevenson posted the latest concept plan on the project’s website www.drurysouth.net.

It says the project has been reduced by 16 percent to 362-hectares but can still hook into any one of three of the council’s Mill Rd traffic corridor options.

In the north the road linking the project’s spine road to Fitzgerald Rd has been moved to align with an existing paper road, the notes say.

"It will be a two-lane road connecting to Fitzgerald Rd at about numbers 395 and 411 Fitzgerald Rd," it says.

But the recently formed Fitzgerald Rd residents group is saying "no way" to the development.

Group spokesman Steve Dickenson says Fitzgerald Rd would become completely unsafe for schoolchildren at rural bus stops, cyclists, runners, stock and residents trying to get in and out of their driveways.

He says he’s talked to Mr Hughes about the group’s ideas but was told the latest concept plan was the one the company was lodging with the council.

"If it comes down Fitzgerald Rd it’s going to split a community in half," Mr Dickenson says.

Stevenson hadn’t replied to the Papakura Courier’s request for information by press time.

- © Fairfax NZ News