Author: bra-admin

After a giant slip hit a parking lot, Auckland’s Birkenhead is getting $15,000 to encourage shoppers back into the town centre ahead of Christmas.

The Kaipātiki Local Board agreed to give $15,000 to the Birkenhead Town Centre Association at a board meeting on November 15.

Construction work had reduced parking spaces before the slip hit, and association chairman Pete Taylor said the money would fund a marketing plan to say: “Birkenhead still has free parking”.

Media attention seems to be giving the wrong impression about Birkenhead’s parking situation given recent events, Taylor said.

“It is certainly not the case that there is no parking left in Birkenhead,” he said.

In the past six months, the Birkenhead town centre has dealt with Rawene Car Park space shortages caused by Auckland Transport renting out public car parks to the neighbouring private developers, as well as the Rawene car park slip.

Most recently, Auckland Council confirmed a $3-million construction plan to upgrade town centre would be going ahead on schedule, despite pleas from business owners asking for a deferral.

The Birkenhead Town Centre Association wants to promote the fact city shoppers can jump on the ferry to Birkenhead, and enjoy the experience of free parking while shopping.

“There are also lots of activities in Birkenhead leading up to Christmas, so the timing of the promotion is good,” Taylor said.

“It will make a difference to lift the public awareness about what is available. The $15,000 will help us tell that story better.”

The local board’s $15,000 funds were reallocated from a budget originally for earmarked for a Birkenhead development programme.

Kaipātiki Local Board chairwoman Danielle Grant said the money was available because a few other projects have been delayed.

“It felt like there was a big need, and they had a good marketing plan,” Grant said.

The board decided to supplement that marketing plan and encourage people in the area to shop locally, she said.

In the meantime, Auckland Transport is working alongside the local board and Auckland Council to identify ways to improve parking and connections in Birkenhead.

Article by Laine Moger
Published 28 November 2017 > Business Day – stuff.co.nz

The huge Rawene car park slip could create a dam endangering the iconic Chelsea heritage park below it, council engineers say.

At a local board meeting on Wednesday, Auckland Council’s geotech lead Ross Roberts said they were monitoring the situation “carefully” as there was a risk of the landslide causing a dam.

“The real problem we are considering is that there will be a load of silt coming down,” he said.

Member Lindsay Waugh asked: “On a worst-case scenario could it take out the bank above the lower lake/cooling pond?”

Roberts said he had visited the Chelsea Estate Heritage Park below the slip and the worst-case scenario was “highly unlikely” as any flooding from a dam establishing and breaching would result in over-land flow rather than underground erosion.

“It would spread out and be a bit of a mess on the surface,” Roberts said.

“I might hold you to that one,” Waugh said.

Six weeks before the landslide swallowed the back end of the Auckland City car park, Auckland Council began an “essential” $9-million project to strengthen unstable land below that leads to the Chelsea Heritage Estate.

Auckland Council said, in an email dated August 15, that the Chelsea Heritage Estate stormwater project was to renew the aging and damaged stormwater pipes to reduce the risk of collapse and blockage.

In a prescient email, project spokeswoman Liz Kirschberg said: “Surface runoff from the Huka Road and Rawene Road stormwater drain flows over the former landfill and may cause slope instability during large rain events.”

Construction began at the end of August 2017 and was planned to end December 2018.

Local board chairwoman Danielle Grant said in August, the stormwater improvements to Chelsea Estate Heritage Park should see the land stabilised, the water quality improved and an overall improvement to the main walking tracks in the construction area.

The stormwater project is on-going but engineers are now “monitoring the situation” at the slip-site above.

Article by Laine Moger
Published 20 October 2017 > The North Shore Times – stuff.co.nz

Top AT and Council staff maintain local development had nothing to do with the massive Rawene car park slip last week.

Here is a selected transcript from the Kaipatiki Local Board (LB) meeting on Wednesday night.

They were questioning AT Senior Communications Advisor Nahri Salim, Auckland Council’s Geotechnical & Geological Practice Lead Ross Roberts, Head of Infrastructure Programmes, Haydn Read; and AT Snr. Investigation and Design Engineer Duncan Miller.

How can experts maintain that the pile driving conducted by the adjacent construction worker did not contribute to the slip?

Lindsay Waugh (LB): So was there no consideration, to your knowledge, of the vibrations from the pile driving travelling along the fill to cause the slip? It would seem to be a sensible assumption?

Roberts: No, vibration from soil drilling are insignificant. My experience of other sites, is that the sort of vibrations that you get from that are insignificant. What you get from trucks going along the road create more vibrations.

John Gillon (LB): I’ve heard from a lot of people that every time the piles were driven they could feel those vibrations all around the area, so I find it very curious that there are less vibrations from that than a truck going past.

Roberts: It is difficult to prove, what triggered the slip, almost impossible. This is following a period of very heavy rain.

Gillon (LB): We are looking to confirm that there will be a review to consider all the circumstances that resulted in the car park slip. Who will be doing that review and will it include looking at whether the vibrations had anything to do with the slip, or anything else?

Miller: Whoever does the review, they will be professional services who will be independent and funded jointly by AT and Auckland Council.

What will the review cover?

Anne-Elise Smithson (LB): What are the technical aspects of this review and can you clarify if the review will consider that vibrations contributed to the slip?

Roberts: A scope hasn’t been written for the review yet. When it comes to actually looking at what caused the slip, we can ask consultants to assess whether vibrations had any impact. I would give it it my 99 per cent confidence they it will come back with a “probably not, but we can’t prove it”.

Smithson (LB): But surely it’s not too much to ask to have that included?

Robert: We will ask that question. I don’t think we will get a good answer out of it.

Salim: The point we want to make, the investigation will not preclude any reason. In the same vein, we will not try and encourage the consultants to focus on any one reason over another than the other. This will be a fair review.

Was preventing the slip possible?

Adrian Tyler (LB): I wonder if this carpark had a higher profile some engineering work might have happened rather than just fences going around it. Could you not have done some engineering work to protect the asset?

Ross: To have put in engineering works would have taken number of months. The slip was very deep. There were no signs early enough for the slip to have been prevented.

John Gillon (LB): But AT have been monitoring the site for 12 months?

Roberts: There have been a lot of small cracks but there are lots of car parks with small cracks in them. The cracks weren’t big enough to trigger a detailed engineering response. When it came to the point where it was that serious to trigger that response – it was too late.

Salim: There was no indication that a slip was imminent.

Will Chelsea Heritage Park be affected?

Lindsay Waugh (LB): Has there been any investigation of the slip into the stormwater works in Chelsea Heritage Park?

Roberts: I’ve been down there myself – there is no immediate impact. The real problem we are considering is that there will be a load of silt coming down. There is also the risk of the landslide causing a dam. So we are monitoring that carefully.

Waugh (LB): On a worst-case scenario could it take out the bank above the lower lake/cooling pond? It’s all precarious land so is there a risk of a knock-on effect?

Roberts: It is highly unlikely, any flooding from a dam establishing and breaching would result in overland flow and it would just spread out and be a bit of a mess on the surface.

Can AT reverse the lease of the carparks?

Richard Hills (Ward councillor): The board was never supportive of the leasing of the car parks. However, we were told they were necessary for safety reasons. Now, we can see there are port-a-coms and everything on those car parks, which means the parks are not being used for the original purpose. If it was a private property next door, you wouldn’t be able to do that. I think that would be the best way to get a positive outcome in the short term to release these car parks back to Birkenhead shoppers.

Salim: Auckland Transport is looking into this.

Are there health and safety concerns for the surrounding buildings?

Danielle Grant (LB): I would like a sense of assurance for the surrounding staff of Mokoia Rd shops, Mokoia Ridge Apartments, and the other building sites on Rawene Rd .

Roberts: It looks pretty convincingly like the fill does not extend further than it has. The risk to those shops is completely unchanged. However, we are investigating this to give residents more confidence and more assurance

The $3-million construction plan to upgrade an Auckland town centre will go ahead on schedule, despite pleas from business owners asking for a deferral.

Birkenhead Town Centre Association chairman Pete Taylor said given the recent Rawene car park slip in Birkenhead, it was “inappropriate” for the upgrade to proceed in January. He requested it be delayed for 12 months.

Taylor said the upgrade would create yet more strain on an already significant shortfall of car parking in Birkenhead, which would lead to a further decline in revenue business owners.

Local businesses have been “traumatised” by recent events, he said.

The car parking situation in Birkenhead has always been strained, but recent events in Rawene Rd car park have exacerbated the situation, he said.

First, 25 public car parks were leased to private developers and then a further 50 car parks were lost due to the landslide – 26 physically lost and the rest cordoned off.

For example, the centre’s usually lucrative Heritage Week had no increase in business revenue this year, he said.

Taylor requested the 25 leased car parks be given back to the public as a matter of urgency, suggesting a park-and-ride shuttle.

“We want to get the workers cars out of Birkenhead. A shuttle bus system would work and try to encourage people to come into Birkenhead,” Taylor said.

Auckland Transport’s Haydn Read, senior investigation and design engineer, said deferring the upgrade would risk the highly-likely loss of capital funding.

Local board member Paula Gillon said the fact the slip is a natural disaster should be taken into consideration for holding the money over for the next 12 months.

However, local board member Kay McIntyre said financially, if the upgrade is deferred the money will be lost.

“They are not going to worry about the fact that it’s a slip – it’s a car park.

“At the end of the day we have to make our city work.”

“Do it this year or it’s gone,” McIntyre said.

The Birkenhead upgrade saw the Kaimataara ō Wai Manawa completed last September.

Stage one, worth $2,782,452, tackles Rawene Road carpark, the Western Gateway, Mokoia Rd bus stop extension and Le Roys Bush track gateway.

Stage two will be the upgrade of Highbury corner, worth $1,585,000.

Upgrades go out for tender next week.

Article by Laine Moger
Published 19 October 2017 > The North Shore Times – stuff.co.nz

Cracks are growing at an Auckland car park that has already been closed because of subsidence.

The rear section of Birkenhead’s Rawene car park was closed off by Auckland Transport for safety reasons on September 20, following the subsidence of an already existing crack.

A comparison between photographs taken on September 25 and October 7 suggests the slip has only got worse in the space of 12 days.

Auckland Transport’s Mark Hannan said geo-tech and engineering investigations are still underway and said there is “no danger to the public”.

The difference between the two subsidence levels is almost at waist height, and the crack in the car park has now stretched into the neighbouring hillside.

Hannan has previously denied the cause of the crack was linked to adjacent construction work by private developers Chelsea Bay due to the fact the car park was built on an embankment of landfill.

However, nearby residents aren’t convinced, saying the construction work is so loud it shakes neighbouring building Rawene Chambers, and that the car park has been fine until construction took place.

Mokoia Ridge resident David Corlett said he is concerned that Auckland Council has underestimated the impact of pile-driving on unstable land, especially as construction is about to begin on the Chelsea Bay site.

“In 2010 council declined an application to build Botanical Gardens in Rawene Reserve, the number one reason being unstable land,” he said.

A civil engineer confirmed there would have been a geotechnical report for the construction site, but there was no need to conduct a report for the car park next to the site.

Article by Laine Moger
Published 07 October 2017 > The North Shore Times _ stuff.co.nz