City Rail Link – C1-C2 Community Liaison Group Meeting MINUTES AND ACTION POINTS Rā: Wā: Wāhi:
27 May 2020 5pm – 6:30pm Online, via Microsoft Teams
CRL CRL staff & contractors
ATTENDEES CLG Members
Maria HernandezCurry (MHC)
Stakeholder Communications Manager – CRL Ltd
Lucas Nikkel (LN)
C2 Project Manager – CRL Ltd
Nicole Lawton (NL)
Communications Coordinator – CRL Ltd
C Williamson
Andrew Swan (AS)
C1 Construction Manager – CRL Ltd
J Mantell
Jhon Aragon (JA)
C1 Delivery Manager – CRL Ltd
Brandy Smith (BS)
Downer Stakeholder Engagement Manager
P McLuckie T Loveridge – Heart of the City V Morrison-Shaw N Quigley J Smith N Playle
R Beckett – Auckland Transport Terry Sugrue – Auckland Transport
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UPDATE/ACTIONS
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Welcome and introductions
• MHC welcomed everyone and thanked them for their patience and cooperation in attending the meeting via online format. She then introduced the meeting agenda. • CLG members, CRL and Auckland Transport staff in attendance introduced themselves.
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C1 Britomart/Lower Queen Street update – Andrew Swan and Jhon Aragon
• Covid-19 distancing and health and safety measures have been put in place on the C1 construction site in accordance with government requirements. These Covid-19 restrictions mean that C1 construction is not working at 100 per cent capacity and productivity is reduced. This, grouped with the effects of Alert Level 4 lockdown, means C1 is expecting some “programme slippage” – although we are still assessing what this means in the long run and continue investigating opportunities to make up time. • Britomart Station was due to be reopened by Christmas 2020, however this is likely to now be delayed. • The tunnels underneath the Chief Post Office (CPO) building and Lower Queen Street have been constructed, and within the CPO, the ground floor is currently being reinstated. • Working on mechanical electrical and plumbing requirements for the CPO’s basement area are underway. • Remedial work will start soon on the ground floor of the CPO. • New metro grade escalators have already been installed with two more to be installed in June.
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• Workers have now poured the concrete roof slab over the tunnels, enabling urban realm works to continue on Lower Queen Street. The team have also now successfully completed constructing a sixmetre strip of footpath in Lower Queen Street adjacent to Commercial Bay on the eve of the Covid-19 lock-down. • Excavation of tree pits has also started, and upon the excavation of the pit near Customs Street, construction crews found what was left of the old bluestone sea wall. • Updates to schedule as shown in the below diagram:
• Question from attendee about what time physical works start in the morning. AS answers that prestart meetings occur at 7am and typically works starts from 7:15am. BS answers that the Downtown crew arrives at 6:30am and said she’d follow up with that team on noise levels being made. She added that the Precinct team had started work early in the morning, and would follow up on where noise was coming from. She later confirmed the early works were all FCC/Commercial Bay and not CRL workers. Redesignation of lower Queen Street – Terry Sugrue
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TS introduces himself and his role.
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Auckland Transport is looking to start the public redesignation of lower Queen Street (LQS) ‘next week’ ie the week beginning 1 July 2020.
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History: LQS has been a pedestrian mall since the 1970’s (the area directly outside the CPO). Queen Elizabeth Square was later added and the pedestrian mall was extended to Quay and Customs Street with allowances for vehicles in and out of Tyler and Galway streets. In 2001 buses were allowed to go through.
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To achieve the vision for LQS as a pedestrianised area - the pedestrian mall designation needs to be amended to exclude vehicle allowance.
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The pedestrian mall will be blocked off from Quay and Customs Street and Tyler and Galway streets by bollards. It will be primarily a pedestrian area to anticipate the flow of the public from the nearby transport hubs.
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Cyclists will be allowed to cycle through (carefully through pedestrians, who will have right of way).
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Service vehicles such a Police, Ambulance and Fire trucks will also be allowed.
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UPDATE/ACTIONS
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Current proposal is to allow for authorised vehicles (such as those who undertake maintenance, or event vehicles) to also be allowed in the pedestrian mall.
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Some bollards will be removable to allow for those vehicles – It was initially thought the most basic padlock bollard will suffice, however TS noted it is desirable to obtain and put in place retractable bollards.
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A pedestrian mall consultation is a one-month time period, submissions can be written, or submitters can appear in person.
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Once is decision is made; a statutory right of appeal period will be in place for one month after.
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Question from attendee about where exactly the bollards going to be placed on Tyler Street in relation to the Endeans building’s side entrance. JA answers, the bollards will be exactly 15.7 metres from the edge of the Endeans building. Attendee wants to know whether that means the bollards will be to the west or east of the side door, as not having vehicular access to side door is “not acceptable”, especially given the amount of times the same issue has been bought up at these GLG meetings in the past. MHC takes an action to check on previous minutes for mention of these bollards.
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AS notes that bollards will be 1.5 metres apart so ‘anything you can get through the door, you can get through the bollards’. He also notes that Tyler St will be a P5 parking zone. Attendee asks what will happen if the Tyler St P5 zone is completely full, then they’ll have nowhere to park when dropping off goods to the residence. AS takes an action away to investigate if the bollards could be moved to the western side of the side door.
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Attendee asks TS about the drop off zones for 20-minute passes for parking on Tyler Street – Attendee expecting AT to provide these once CRL is complete for people, such as Tradies, to park there for 20 minutes with impunity. TS said he’s not sure about passes but said both Tyler and Galway has been designed with mobility parks and loading zone elements to be used during certain times. TS said he’ll take an action away to look at the 20-minute passes option.
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Attendee asks about the pedestrian mall exemption for cyclists, wanting to know if mobility device users could also use the space. TS confirms that that group are treated as pedestrians and would indeed be allowed to use the space. TS takes a note away to make that clearer in the consultation process.
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C Williamson read out a summary from Cooper and Company as follows: o It’s important for Cooper and Co to have access in one end of Galway Street and out the other for delivery trucks. The current plan of having large delivery trucks, incapable of turning around on the street because of a large turning circle, reverse back down the heavily pedestrianised street is ‘unthinkable’. o To achieve this, Cooper and Co suggested electronic retractable bollards for those delivery trucks. Physically retractable, padlock bollards is ‘unworkable’. More information is needed. Specific concerns include: o Restrictions on access - given the limited number of exemptions (emergency vehicles and prior approved maintenance vehicles) installing lockable (non-retractable) bollards on Galway, Tyler, Customs and Quay Streets will effectively dead-end Galway and Tyler Streets. Delivery vehicles, which a necessary for servicing the precinct and delivering to the businesses are not on the list of exemptions. o Servicing of businesses/precinct – The dead-ending of these streets will adversely affect the operation of both the businesses in the area and the Precinct – the latter which is required, under the Britomart Development Deed, to maximise 24/7 usage and vibrancy. This is because
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it will restrict the types of delivery and other vehicles which are able to access and service the area. Traffic safety – the narrow width of both Galway and Tyler Streets, and the lack of loading spaces on Galway Street (noting that TS has said he’ll look into installing some) will result in some of the larger construction/delivery/servicing vehicles having to reverse out of these streets if the streets are dead-ended. Heritage buildings – there are no loading docks or loading spaces available at the back of the heritage buildings on Galway Street to accommodate the turning circles of longer vehicles and nor is there an ability to create such docks or spaces – given the heritage status. Resource consents – there are existing resource consents for the businesses on Galway Street which require those businesses to be serviced from Galway Street. Public Spaces – the public spaces agreement provides Cooper and Company with the responsibility to service (inc rubbish and cleaning) public spaces (including Galway and Tyler Street shared spaces) and the right to hold events in those areas. These rights and responsibilities will be adversely impacted by the proposal. Lack of information/consultation and consideration – there is a need for a detailed statement of proposal to be provided, showing the types, lengths and turning circles of vehicles that AT consider can be accommodated within Tyler and Galway Streets, a traffic safety assessment, an assessment of the different bollard options (including retractable bollard options) and an assessment of the impact of the effects of the proposal (with the different bollard options) on the each of the specific businesses, residents and stakeholders affected. None of that has been provided.
TS acknowledged that less work has been done on the study of this area. TS acknowledged automatic, electronic retractable bollards is desirable option. TS agreed that the points raised by Cooper and Company were “important things to investigate” TS noted they wanted to launch the redesignation process next week regardless, even though they may not have all the information by then but hoped to do that through the process, and that he would take on board the comment about people needing the information earlier to determine how they would be affected. SUBSEQUENT ACTION – Auckland Transport made some changes to the proposals based on feedback; AT now installing retractable bollards on Tyler and Galway and have tweaked the authorised vehicles list to also allow for approval of vehicles that need to go through the ped mall in order to make essential deliveries or collections (this would include deliveries in Tyler and Galway in vehicles that are too big to turn around so they have to go through the mall and the other side street in order to function).
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C2 Albert St contract update – Lucas Nikkel
• LN introduces himself. • Explains that, as with C1’s expected project delays due Covid-19 reasons, C2 may experience some “programme slippage”. • However, he did note that closure of some businesses, and resulting removal of need to maintain shopfront access (such as the Stamford Hotel), has meant that while some of the interim completion dates have ‘shifted around’ the C2 scope of works in general has made some time gains and is on track to be delivered by December 2020 as planned. • Starting tree planting in early June. • The construction programme for the block near the old NZME building is slightly delayed because of other construction in the area. Page | 4
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• The block in front of Stamford is still due to be complete in late July/early August, despite losing a month to Covid-19, because of the increased access. • The last block, the Galleria block, is still due to be completed in December.
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Wider project update - Maria Hernandez-Curry
• Attendees elected to not hear the wider project update. • MHC takes an action to send the wider project update to the C1 & C2 CLG data base regardless. • All sites went back to construction on 28th April. • C1 and C2 sites are keeping normal work hours but C3 is increasing their construction work hours to make up for time lost during lockdown.
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