Welcome Bay resident Christine Dean is facing three years of heavy earth moving and the loss of her neighbourhood when construction on the Welcome Bay underpass starts, she says.

The 64-year-old widow's property at No.28 Hammond Street is not required to be purchased by NZ Transport Agency to build the Hairini underpass - but Christine wants to sell-up.

Christine Dean wants NZTA to purchase her house as part of a the Welcome Bay underpass.

Welcome Bay resident Christine Dean's property on Hammond Street is not needed to be purchased by NZTA.

She says the project, which will leave her property as the only house at the bottom of the street surrounded by construction, will make her feel 'like an animal in a cage”.

Her objections were made through her son Ryan and lawyer Kate Barry-Piceno at today's city council hearings into the Hairini underpass project's Notification of Requirement. Christine is out of town.

Christine's husband Ted died in January 2011, but before then Brigadier Edward Dean and Christine attended all the public meetings held by the NZTA in relation to the Hairini Project.

'My husband was opposed to this as well. Unfortunately he contracted a melanoma and died in a short period of time.

'He was a local boy, a former CO of the Haurakis, he served in the territorials for a number of years. He was a community minded person.

'I've tried my best to make sure they knew I was not happy. It was only by pushing them that they ever came to see me.”

She wants the transport agency to purchase her house, as well as the eight homes clustered around the corner at the bottom of the hill. The notification gives the NZTA the authority to begin negotiations.

The current design of the project leaves the Dean property at No 28, the sole remaining house on the lower section of the street. In future it will be accessed by its own cul-de-sac.

Before that happens the property may be cut off from all road access for long periods of time as the construction plan involves filling the swampy gully beside Hammond Street with 190,000cm of fill to build the road embankment.

She's been offered alternative accommodation, but nothing specific. Being absent from the family home of 20 years also raises insurance issues. It lapses after six months if an insured property is left empty.

Speaking outside the hearing Christine says the agency's claim that she's not affected is contradicted by the mitigations they offer.

'If you look at all these things that I have to live through, the construction, the noise, the dust, the vibration, being isolated and all that, it obviously is being affected.

'It could go on for three to five years to endure. I don't know how you can say that you are not affected.”

Christine says she's been left out because her property is not part of the designated land area.

'It does look to me like they have manipulated the designation line to completely avoid my place,” says Christine.

A decision on the $52million project is expected in about two weeks.

The underpass project is part of an on-going project that has been gradually improving access along State Highway 2A (15^th Avenue) since 2008, says project manager Neil Mason.

The underpass has been brought on ahead of the Turret Road realignment because of the affect congestion at the roundabouts would have on the through traffic on SH29 – a strategic link to the Port of Tauranga.