SOS Three Kings Quarry

This is an SOS call asking you to GIVE A LITTLE to help our community fight Auckland Council, Fletchers and Minister Nick Smith in the Unitary Plan Hearings and Environment Court.

Here’s how you can help. Donations big and small … $20, $50, $100, $200 … will help us pay for legal, planning and urban design experts who are needed in the Environment Court. If you can afford more that will be amazing. Every dollar counts on our way to raising $150,000. To support our cause, it’s easy to GIVE A LITTLE now using the Donate Now button to the right.

PS There are different ways people can help. Giving a Little is one way. Or you may be able to provide some time or expertise. Or you may be able to put us in touch with someone who can help. Please use the Q&A feature above to get in touch, we appreciate your support.

If you want to know more, here’s why this is important. Fletchers and Council have steamed ahead with ten-storey apartment proposals here and it sets a bad precedent for the rest of Auckland.

For 90 years Fletchers have been quarrying Three Kings. They’ve dug a deep hole below road level and only one of the five scoria cones Te Tatua-a-Riukiuta, the Big King, is left.

A few years ago Fletchers told us and the Environment Court that it would rehabilitate the quarry by filling it to Mt Eden Road level. Now their plan is to leave a big hole in the ground and build eleven ten-storey apartment blocks around the quarry edge. Then they want to fill the quarry floor with more apartment blocks. It’s going to be wall-to-wall development in there with some 3500 or more residents.

Fletchers and the Council secretly progressed these development plans, which include use of Council reserve land, and signed a Memorandum of Agreement before telling the community. They have pushed through a Private Plan Change and are now trying to get the changes into the Unitary Plan.

They have left the Three Kings community with no choice but to take the case to the Environment Court.

We’re not Nimbys and we’re up for development. There is a great opportunity here to fix the quarry, integrate the volcanic landscape back into the community, develop plenty of housing, and build connections with the Three Kings town centre.

Instead …. Auckland Council, Fletchers and the Minister will turn up at the Environment Court with an army of lawyers and expert witnesses. Minister Nick Smith wants “to make a firm stand in favour of these sorts of plan changes that are needed to address Auckland's growth and housing problems.” So its Three Kings today, and the rest of Auckland tomorrow.

To date concerned people within the Three Kings community have spent thousands of hours and dollars advocating for this cause. We have engaged a lawyer and expert witnesses and they have provided some of their time on a pro bono basis, but we can’t expect these people to fight our case totally for free all the way through the Unitary Plan hearings and in the Environment Court throughout March, April, May and June.

We continue to fundraise throughout Three Kings but now need your help against big players with much more money at their disposal, including taxpayers and ratepayer dollars. Funds are needed to support our case, and will be used only to pay for legal representation and expert witnesses required in Unitary Plan hearings and in the Environment Court.

So this is an SOS call. We need your help today:

… to improve long term outcomes for one of Auckland’s volcanic cones;

… to get Fletchers to rehabilitate the quarry site better … after all, they dug the hole; and

… to send Council a message about working better with, and planning better for local communities.

We’re doing this for future generations, for Auckland’s future as a liveable city. Yes, Three Kings will be developed with more density, but it must be better than what is currently proposed. If Three Kings is allowed to go ahead as planned it will set a bad benchmark for the rest of Auckland, both in terms of outcome and in the way large developers, Council and now Government Ministers deal with growth in our communities.

Please help by giving a little. Please hit “Donate Now”, and then follow up with spreading the word to your family, friends and workmates. Everyone giving a little counts for a lot.