Palmerston North, a city where the legal framework for governance is simply torn up. John Stichbury offers his concerns around wind farm development and the process the local authority has undertaken.

Palmerston North has over the years become the butt of jokes, which belie the fact that it is a pleasant, centrally placed city with all the amenities you could reasonably wish for. It has a natural backdrop, the Tararua Ranges, where the city water supply, clothed in impressive, regenerating native forest, is surrounded by a very large number of rural residential properties. John Cleese several years ago described the city as the perfect place to commit suicide. He was joking of course, but we have a Council here which is hell bent on euthanizing the city itself. PNCC, described by a past councillor as having the collective intelligence of a grape, has turned the city’s landscape and water catchment over to Mighty River Power to allow it to build a wind farm, where even the Board of Inquiry, charged with approving it, has commented in its Draft Decision:

“Landscape and Visual Amenity Effects: This is the first wind project in New Zealand which will impact on a large population base.

A large number of rural residential properties are located on the slopes below the wind farm with the residents of these properties having major concerns primarily over visual and noise effects."

After 5 years of constant battles with PNCC, an expensive court case taken by the Friends of the Turitea Reserve, and a debilitating round of hearings, initiated by Minister Smith who called in the project, we are at the final stage of approval being given.

But how did we get to a situation where city ratepayers are to pay dearly for being foolish enough to own property which will have 125 metre (that’s 40 storey) turbines towering over them? The answer is simple. The past PNCC, CEO, and some of his council officers and advisors withheld information and told lies. For example, council officers said that the nearest turbines would be 1.5km from the nearest property. In the consent application one turbine proposed was only 50m from the nearest property. In the draft decision there is still a turbine 400metres from the nearest property.

Events to date:

• In September 2005 PNCC signs a wind farm contract with Mighty River Power. The contract is secret and ratepayers are blissfully unaware that in this secret contract PNCC completely negates its responsibilities under the Local Government Act 2002 by agreeing to do all in its power to help MRP achieve its goal. PNCC also agreed to pay a multi-million dollar penalty if it breached this condition of doing everything within its powers to ensure the project proceeds. PNCC had ripped up its social contract with ratepayers.

• Some citizens alerted by the dearth of information put out by the Council in 2007 in a glossy flyer, and under the signature of the then Mayor Heather Tanguay, and realising that the city was being conned, at their own expense, circulated flyers alerting the public as to what was really going on. This caused a furore at the Council, which, instead of rubber-stamping the wind farm, was then forced to go through a public consultation about the mooted change of purpose to the Turitea Reserve. Ratepayers turned up in droves to berate the Council, but the consultation was a farce, as the secret agreement with Mighty River Power, and known only to councillors and legal counsel, was driving the process. Council went ahead and approved the change of purpose for the Turitea Reserve to pave the way for Mighty River Power’s wind farm in the water reserve and on surrounding farm land. Mayor Tanguay refused to give any details about the wind farm and by the time of the next municipal elections had become a liability to the cause, even though she campaigned on global warming rather than footpaths. Her successor, Jono Naylor, a supporter of the wind farm, ran an expensive campaign and to this day has been coy about who his backers were, although one campaign contribution from Higgins, wind farm contractors, was revealed. Paul Wylie, city CEO and apparent initiator of this sorry saga, suddenly left for a lesser paying job at Tasman District Council, where by all accounts he is making himself extremely unpopular.

• The Friends of the Turitea Reserve then mounted a legal challenge to the decision of changing the purpose of the Turitea water Reserve to permit a wind farm in the Reserve. They lost because the case in the High Court focused on the legality of changing the purpose. The delay caused by the High Court case was by now irritating Mighty River Power, who put pressure first on the Trevor Mallard and then Nick Smith to have the project called in. Environment Minister Smith claimed that the call-in was a matter of national importance to meet NZ’s international commitments under Kyoto.

• Submissions against the wind farm at the call in hearings were overwhelmingly against the wind farm. The Board listened politely to noise and landscape experts opposing the proposal, but when confronted by my submission with evidence of perjury and systematic fraud by the wind farm promoters, did not enforce the protocols outlined for the hearing, i.e. submitters were there to present their case and not to be cross examined by legal counsel. The Board refused to accept a RadioLive interview with MRP CEO Doug Heffernan where he lied about the wind farm. This interview, which was removed during the hearings, has been reinstated and is getting considerable internet traffic. As my submission was disrupted and I was not listened to, I walked out of the hearings. The Board’s brief was to consent a wind farm and they have done just that, maximising the proposal on economic grounds, contrary to RMA guidelines. Economic considerations are outside the RMA and are board room decisions to be made by the applicant and not by a Board of Inquiry. The noise standard used for wind farm applications is exposed as a sham drawn up by the wind industry itself. West Wind and Te Rere Hau wind farms cause considerable ongoing noise nuisance and irritation for residents, despite meeting the noise standard.

But that’s not all. The Turitea wind farm has been consented not only in a water reserve and close to too many residents, but is also located right on the Wellington Fault line. The Board was told about this, and the associated risks of fire and oil leakage in a water catchment. The Board has also ignored distracting shadow flicker, and in the event of a turbine failure, flying debris, over the Pahiatua Track.

All of the issues I have raised here, plus many others, can be found on www.palmerston-north.info.

Does this sound like the New Zealand you live in, or is it somewhere else?

Paul Stichbury
(Submitter 325)

Paul Stichbury moved to Palmerston North in 1957 and worked as a teacher in secondary schools for 37 years, 32 in local schools. For 12 years he and his wife also developed and ran The Gables Bed and Breakfast on Fitzherbert Avenue, which featured in the Lonely Planet and the Friars Guide for Discerning Travellers.

Plans for an exclusive tourist development on land, which PNCC allowed to be subdivided into rural residential sections, but which was under land which had been secretly earmarked for a wind farm years earlier, were subsequently scuppered. Paul and his wife took a very substantial loss as a consequence, and while planning to return to the city someday, are now overseas endeavouring to recover their finances.

They both continue to oppose the Turitea wind farm. They have friends whose lives and financial situation will be ruined if it goes ahead.