The aerial photo shows Parata Street running 1 block west of and parallel to the SH1, probably about 5 years ago before the massive residential development in the area that was paddocks.

Since then, Ryman has built their retirement village (and are still building it) and most of the rest of the area is being sold off as land sections, some already have houses on them.

What property businesses don’t care about, but local councils do, is the impact of this sort of growth on community infrastructure needs.

When the electric trains were extended from Paraparaumu to Waikanae in 2011, the provision for car parking at Waikanae station was totally inadequate and that remains the case, causing a lot of frustration for residents on the east side of the railway line and businesses on the west side.

It’s probable that a lot of the people in the new housing mentioned above drive to the station to take the train to Wellington, and the more houses that are built, the bigger that problem will become.

A new car park has been eyed on the land currently occupied by the Catholic Church (which will move elsewhere); we wonder why not also the land occupied by the former Waikanae branch of Mitre 10 which is to the right in this Google Streetview and has been closed for some time.  This is only three doors along from the Catholic Church.

The Streetview below shows the Mitre 10 site – with the button in the bottom right you can manipulate the view by clicking, to rotate the pictures and by clicking on the arrows on the bottom to move along the street.

Update – as can be seen in the Google streetview, a  new building is being constructed on the site of the Mitre 10 shop.