Tauranga Council will consider controversial avenue closure

Tauranga councilors will review a controversial impasse in Tauranga’s city center which a homeowner says has reduced the value of her property by thousands of dollars.

The end of Cameron Road at West 7th Avenue has been turned into a cul-de-sac as part of the first phase of Tauranga City Council’s $110 million Cameron Road project.

The project increased safety measures and added separate bike lanes and bus lanes to the arterial route.

The century-old water infrastructure has also been upgraded to accommodate higher-density development in the future.

In May 2023, 7th Avenue was permanently closed during construction, and the first phase of the Cameron Road project was completed in February.

At Monday’s Project Planning and Monitoring Committee meeting, the council decided to re-engage with affected businesses and residents along 7th Avenue, as well as the community at large.

Christine Currie owns 405 Cameron Rd on the corner of 7th Avenue, where the Bay of Plenty Times and SunLive NZME, among other businesses, are based.

She told those at the meeting that the value of her property had declined and she had lost rent since closing. She said this was due to tenants having to travel extra distances to get to Cameron Road. Currie previously told the Bay of Plenty Times that an appraiser had estimated that closing 7th Avenue would reduce the value of her building by up to $800,000.

“When I paid for the building, I paid for a corner of the building, and I just feel like the whole building was shortchanged,” she said at Monday’s meeting.

According to the council’s website, the building had a rated value of $5.86 million in May 2023.

The closure also affected several businesses on and near 7th Avenue, she said.

The cafe next to her building lost parking right outside because of the new bus stop, and customers no longer had easy access to parking spots on 7th Avenue, Curry said.

“The closure removed a large amount of parkland on 7th Avenue that was valuable to businesses and customers.”

Curry suggested trimming the grass mounds outside to add more.

The owner of the building said she had not received any notice of the planned closure and had read the plans for the street on the council’s website.

“We had to look through 18 pages of plans to find out – by which time the objections had closed.

“As the owner of the building, I should have been the first to be notified.

“I won’t be satisfied until 7th Avenue is reopened at Cameron Road.”

Mayor Mahe Drysdale asked whether creating a one-way lane from Cameron Road to 7th Avenue would solve the problem.

Curry said her tenants need quick access to Cameron Road and cafe patrons need access to 7th Avenue.

Councilman Rick Curach asked whether opening the road with left turns only on Cameron Road would be a satisfactory compromise.

Curry said that was unsatisfactory, but she was willing to discuss it as an option.

Council transport chief Mike Seaborn said the changes to Cameron Road were aimed at creating a multi-modal corridor that could cope with future growth in traffic, pedestrians and cyclists.

There can be awkward trade-offs when developing transportation projects, he said.

“They’re not always better for everyone around them, but they’re better for everything.”

Seaborn said closing some roads was common practice because the more intersections a road had, the less efficient it was.

He said the council consulted with business and property owners, as well as the general public.

Consultations began in December 2018, with staff visiting businesses in person. In December 2019, the business was invited to join the PR team.

Public consultation took place from 10 March to 10 April 2021.

Councilman Steve Morris asked what the council could learn from other councils that do good consultation.

City center infrastructure manager Sean Gird said every council had problems with consultation and some did it better than others.

He said the council needed to acknowledge that consultation on the Cameron Road project could have been done better.

The council asked staff to speak with people affected by the 7th Avenue closure and suggest options for the street.

LDR is local journalism jointly funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

Editor’s note: Alisha Evans is a reporter for Local Democracy Reporting based in SunLive’s newsroom. She has written a series of articles about the Cameron Road project, including Christine Curry’s concerns about closing 7th Avenue. Previous articles were published before NZME bought SunLive in early 2024. This article continues that story. NZME’s discussions with the landlord and council regarding 7th Avenue did not influence this report.