Pyes Pa kiwifruit orchardists are offering Tauranga City Council a ‘get out of jail free' card this week by suggesting their former orchard land south of The Lakes and on Keenan Rd be used for housing.

If the offer is accepted, the orchardists say the added population will make the Route K toll road viable and the $100 million Southern Pipeline sewer project profitable.

The Lakes and Keenan Rd.

Group spokesman Andrew Dunstan made the submission at the Smartgrowth Draft Strategy hearings this week, stressing the area be prioritised into the settlement pattern.

Pushing the development will take pressure off roads elsewhere, resulting in less congestion and less required upgrading, says Andrew.

Travel from Keenan Rd to the Tauranga CBD is approximately 10 minutes via route K.

As a new housing area, it would sit adjacent the Tauriko business estate beside the preferred Auckland Tauranga route.

'Because of this, business and industrial development will have a natural focus on this side of the city,” says Andrew.

'Nearby housing integrates well with the ‘work, live, play' strategy, and situating the population close to employment will make existing infrastructure last longer before upgrades are required.

'The use of pressurised sewerage mains to the existing Southern Pipeline will enable more development at less infrastructure cost.”

The excess capacity of the Pyes Pa bypass will form an integral part of future development in the area, and local development levies could be used to help Tauranga City Council pay off the $10 million it spent on the project.

Andrew says further housing development in Pyes Pa south is a natural extension of The Lakes development and will better use existing infrastructure.

It may also be cheaper to develop the housing because a significant portion of the required infrastructure already exists and the land contour is such that much of it will not need extensive earthworks, he says.

The significant effect of Psa-V on the orchards is a main reason for bringing the land into housing, says Andrew.

The severity of its impact on orchards is directly related to damp wet conditions, heavier soils and areas with less sunlight hours, he says.

'Relative to the eastern areas of the Western Bay of Plenty, Pyes Pa exhibits these Psa-V supporting traits because of its distance from the coast, elevation, and shadowing of the Kaimai Ranges,” says Andrew.

'Because of this we will, and are already seeing, a shift in production towards eastern areas which are drier and sunnier.”

The SmartGrowth strategy is an exercise where the participating members: Tauranga City Council, Western BOP District Council and BOP Regional Council agree on the SmartGrowth policy, and then lock it in.

It backfired during the global financial crisis, forcing participating councils to continue paying for projects such as the Southern Pipeline to meet growth projections that have yet to eventuate.

The councils will continue Smartgrowth deliberations today and tomorrow.