Developers of the special housing area on the former Golden Grove holiday park grounds off Girven Road in Mount Maunganui are facing planning resistance to part of the design.

A proposed child care centre has attracted the attention of Tauranga City Council development planner Shanan Miles, who is particularly concerned at the impact a proposed centre will have on parking and traffic flows in the adjacent Paterson Street.

In a report prepared for the hearing before the Town Planning Commissioner on Friday, Shanan says while the housing part of the development comes under the Special Housing Area legislation, the café and child care centre do not. They remain under the Resource Management Act.

The developer SNG Investments Ltd seeks to develop the site with up to 69 independent dwelling units, a childcare centre for up to 115 children and 17 staff and a 78m2 café.

Only the dwellings are covered by the Special Housing Act. The café and child care centre have to be considered under existing legislation and town planning rules.

In addition to the potential traffic generation and safety effects associated with the intensity of the development, the proposal includes an overall car parking shortfall in terms of numbers anticipated by the City Plan, of 49 spaces, with 164 required and 115 proposed.

The traffic study predicts the development will generate a total of 904 daily and 213 peak hour vehicle movements, an increase of 823 daily and 190 peak vehicle movements. Of these movements 472 or 52 per cent of the daily movements and 161 76 per cent of the peak movements are generated by the childcare activity.

He says the traffic study doesn't take into account traffic on Paterson Street which faces congestion in morning and evening peak hours from drivers avoiding congestion in Girven Road. It also doesn't take into account the effect it will have on roadside parking in Paterson Street.

The childcare centre proposes 23 car parking spaces, which despite exceeding the City Plan requirement by five spaces, results in an expected peak hour shortfall of 12 spaces, says Shanan.

'There is also, in my opinion, an inherent tension between an application for a non-residential use of this scale of land zoned for residential purposes under an enactment that has a core purpose of enhancing housing affordability by facilitating an increase in land and housing supply.”

The café is small scale, says Shanan, incorporated within a residential building on Girven Road and its effects on character and amenity will be insignificant and will probably successfully integrate into the wider residential development proposed.

'The childcare activity is, however, quite different insofar as, whilst forming part of the Proposal, it will essentially function as a completely independent activity from the residential activities proposed.

'The exception to this is that it will share the Girven Road and Paterson Street vehicle access/egress points and the private road that runs between the two. Aside from this, its relationship to the residential activities is unclear as there appears to be no other symbiosis.

'This is compounded, in my opinion, by the fact that the childcare activity, including its associated, outdoor and car parking areas, is contained within its own principal unit under the proposed unit title subdivision and has a completely different architectural style, having been designed independently of the residential components by a separate architectural firm to that used for the balance of the development.

'It also appears that the scale of the childcare activity and the footprint upon which the centre and its associated car parking and outdoor areas occupy, has resulted in compromises to the residential components of the Proposal and compounded some of the building bulk and location and car parking shortfall impacts of the Proposal in the northern portion of the Site.”

The hearing on Friday was before Commissioner David Hill, who reserved his decision. It is expected in about three weeks.