I'm replying to Tauranga City Council's response to my initial letter ‘Enjoy the view while you can' (The Sun, November 15).

1. Tauranga City Council states: 'Tauriko Business Estate is an industrial zone”. Private land owners followed the same notification process as TCC at the re-zoning of privately-owned rural land to industrial without landowners' consent.
TCC failed to inform those involved in the legislative process, including the Governor General. It took until December 2011 for TCC to admit to landowners it failed to notify anyone of this lack of consent. Consequently, these landowners don't recognise TCC or the alleged business estate.
I notice recent purchasers of ‘surplus' land adjacent to the so-called industrial area have to sign away their rights to protest against any future activities of the developers, as a condition of land purchase.

2. Greenbelt is literally a green belt of land separating city from countryside, used for agriculture, forestry and outdoor leisure acts. Openness is a key feature. Storm water and toxic run-off ponds don't constitute greenbelt land.

3. I believe Belk Rd residents have been told their buffer zone will have toetoe, flax and rimu. None of them, including their children, will live long enough to see the rimu trees provide a visual buffer to 16 metre tall buildings atop 4-5 metres of infill, with rimu noted for exceptionally slow growth rates.

4. TCC ignore my comments on potential contamination of the Wairoa River, which is 129 metres from the alleged industrial land (Regional Council information). Tributaries going into the Wairoa, including the Belk Rd Stream and streams feeding that stream, are breeding grounds for eel and endangered native fish species. TCC seems happy to sign their death warrant, and to permit silting and contamination of the Wairoa. I'm sure whitebaiters will love this. 5. So yes, TCC put notices of Plan Change 3 in the newspaper's public notices. TCC's confirmation of validity of this process is noticed, along with its rapacious arrogance at the expense of future Tauranga residents.

Y James, Tauriko.