St Mary's Catholic School will have to wait a further three weeks before a decision is made to develop on its 13th Avenue grounds.

Tauranga City Council commissioners visited the school today as part of a hearing into the school's resource consent application to expand and develop the school grounds.

Applicant Diocese School's Council Chairman Mr Robin King speaks to council today.

The consent was lodged by the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese, Hamilton to improve school facilities and increase St Mary's student roll.

Proposed school development includes increasing teaching spaces from 16 to 21, establishing a new school library, boosting the maximum school roll to 500 (determined by July 1 each year) and to lift full time equivalent staff from 19 to 24.

The development also proposes an additional onsite and on street parking and a new pick-up/drop-off zone and bus bay on 13th Avenue, including covered walkways and landscaping.

According to St Mary's the school was established in January 1942 and since 1996 its roll has been fluctuating between 290-460 students, with an average of 373.

The school's application states that St Mary's School has been an accepted and established part of the local neighbourhood community for many years.

'It cannot however, continue to stay the same in size or look to suit the needs of its immediate neighbourhood – the school is there to serve its whole community and fulfil its state educational and special character educational purposes as required by the Bishop and Minister of Education.”

The application also refutes opposition on the basis of noise stating that the effects on noise and traffic are of very short duration, so short that as Principal Transportation Engineer Mr Ian Carlisle notes is often hard to measure.

'Noise, traffic and other effects on surrounding residential character and amenity have to be balance against the significant positive effects the school provides to this community, and viewed in the context that they are consistently limited in hours, days and weeks year round.”

Diocese Schools Council Chairman, Robin King, told the council hearing that people who build houses or move into a school locality do so with the knowledge that the school exists – and with that comes the natural features and activities which occur in association with a school.

'In my opinion, they cannot seek to change, or control the events that naturally occur on school property as part of that activity, (which occurs under statute law) nor to impend the development rights of the proprietor.”

Those opposed to the expansion include a Harvey Street couple who submitted a petition including 37 signatures from residents in the surrounding Grace Rd, Burrows St, Harvey St, and 13th and 14th Avenues.

Other concerns raised include traffic flows and parking, loss of green space and noise, boundary lines along the harbour and stormwater disposal to the harbour.