Bob Clarkson's hopes of a quick decision over developing 40 hectares of his land at Tauriko were dashed at a SmartGrowth workshop this week.

A recent Tauranga City Council decision to fast-track Bob's Tauriko development proposal forced an all-in SmartGrowth discussion on the issuse, but there will be no quick fix for Bob.

The expanded Tauriko options now include Bob Clarkson's land at Tauriko West, as well as land south of the current lakes development.

The workshop involving SmartGrowth partners, who include all local councils, the New Zealand Transport Agency and Tangata Whenua, decided to take another look at providing housing land in the city's eastern corridor at Te Tumu, and western corridor at Tauriko.

It means Bob's land is now included in the process.

SmartGrowth Implementation Manager Ken Tremaine says: 'We are needing to look at the Clarkson land in a wider context than perhaps the land owner would like.

'It's more to do with timing. It's not that the Clarkson land would not be used. It would probably be very suitable long term, but we need to look at the whole corridor.”

'We're investigating opportunities in the eastern corridor - particularly Te Tumu - then in the western corridor, but stopping at that point. Then we'll figure out where we actually go.

'Do we look at using the land within the Regional Policy Statement that's already provided for, or do we potentially buy a major fight with NZTA and the other partners by trying to go to the Clarkson land?”

The area in the south western area of Tauriko is the size of Te Tumu and will probably take 8-9000 houses and around 20,000 people. NZTA, however, want to put a road through to get to the port.

'He (Bob) wants to get ahead now,” says Ken, 'but it's got to be set in a wider context. Whatever we design there has got to be durable. We have two potential conflicts - we have to get heavy freight to the port, but we don't want to stifle local opportunity either.”

SmartGrowth's job is to ensure there is always ten years of zoned housing land available for development.

'That's the challenge - to try and keep the prices down,” adds Ken. 'But we have got to do the modelling. We have got to do proper investigations. This stuff is quite challenging and we've got to start with a comprehensive picture.

Currently the time between settlement pattern decisions and resource consent, is normally about five years.

A TCC report says timeframes for the Settlement Pattern Review, and the following RMA processes required to rezone additional greenfield housing land, are going to reduce to an unacceptably low level before additional land is available and serviced for development to commence.

And that's taking into account modest supply gains through the release of Special Housing Areas.

The issue erupted because Bob's land is not included in the current SmartGrowth Settlement Pattern or the Regional Policy Statement urban limits, even though he's been pressuring the city council to develop it for four years.