By Libby Kirkby-McLeod of RNZ

Chipseal is cheap seal – that was the message to council, as Pāpāmoa residents continued their campaign against chipseal road resurfacing.

After an RNZ story last week, Tauranga City Council acknowledged residents’ concerns, which included changing some streets from asphalt to chipseal.

The council said it was committed to listening to the community and, on Tuesday, it got a chance to do just that, when Pāpāmoa Residents and Ratepayers Association chair Philip Brown presented at the council meeting’s public forum.

“The current [council] maintenance plan to resurface all hotmix roads with chipseal will result in a citywide downgrade of all street surfaces,” he told councillors.

“This change will lead to a range of negative consequences for residents, including increased road noise, a rough surface texture, chip migration, tar bleed, inconsistent appearance due to shoddy workmanship, stones being tracked into homes, and the necessity for frequent resealing - every 6-10 years - with additional chipseal coats.”

Brown said he understood that, since the 1990s, all housing subdivisions in Tauranga had asphalt roads.

“The hotmix debate is citywide - it is not just Pāpāmoa,” he said. “It’s Pāpāmoa now, it’s Bethlehem next.”

Papamoa Residents and Ratepayers Association chair Philip Brown says residents living in a number of Papamoa roads do not think they need to be resealed at all. Photo / RNZ

Brown said the issue had severely compromised the council’s relationship with the community.

“Retaining hotmix surfaces on our roads would unequivocally demonstrate to the community that the mayor and councillors are progressive leaders, committed to maintaining the highest standards and best practices for suburban roads in Tauranga,” he said.

Brown also told councillors that residents in affected Pāpāmoa streets were dismayed by the lack of consultation over what they perceived as a downgrading of their road surfaces.

Last week, the council said formal consultation on resealing of roads was not required, as it was a part of its annual maintenance programme.

Deputy Mayor Jen Scoular chaired the council meeting and invited questions on the issue from councillors.

Pāpāmoa ward councillor Steve Morris asked if it was possible to provide residents an option to pay a targeted rate or similar to retain asphalt roads.

Asphalt cost about five times more than chipseal, and the council only replaced like-for-like where high traffic volumes or heavy vehicles justified the cost.

Tauranga City Council operations and infrastructure general manager Reneke van Soest said the council had investigated how residents could pay for the asphalt, but there would be issues to work through and timing was tight, as the resealing crews were already working.

“We can defer for a year, however, we have assessed all roads [to be resealed] as starting to show early signs of failure.”

Brown took issue with the question and answer, and said focusing on ways Pāpāmoa residents could pay to keep their street surface missed the point.

“We’re talking about high-level policy here, which is going to affect the whole city,” he said. “It’s not isolating a couple of Pāpāmoa streets and pitching resident versus his neighbour, whether he wants to pay extra.”

Brown’s solution was a citywide targeted rate to allow every road to be resealed in asphalt.

- RNZ