Community debate Kaipara's proposed district plan

Kaipara’s proposed District Plan was debated from both sides of the development-versus-environment divide at a gathering at the Maungaturoto Community Centre on November 5.

Forest and Bird North Island conservation manager Mark Bellingham and Mangawhai developer Mark Rowbotham shared their quite different perspectives on the plan, which is currently out for public comment.

Mayor Neil Tiller opened the evening by explaining that a fundamental change in the new plan was the shift to an effects-based plan with a list of ‘performance standards’, rather than the former ‘permitted activities’ approach.

“Under the proposed plan, and in line with the Resource Management Act, any activity will be permitted as long as the effects can be mitigated,” he said. “We will be managing effects, rather than the activities themselves.”

Dr Bellingham said a weakness of the plan was that Council had not spent enough time on evaluating what had, or had not, been achieved in the last district plan – environmentally, socially and economically.

“There are lessons to be learned and if we don’t get it right, we’re potentially exposing ratepayers to some large costs,” he said.

Dr Bellingham felt Council consultation with community groups on key problem areas was inadequate. He also felt the plan failed to protect significant landscapes and indigenous biodiversity.

Mr Rowbotham, on the other hand, urged Council to do away with all rules in the plan and allow development to be guided by aims, objectives and policies.

“We don’t need rules,” he said. “This issue of development versus the environment is not rocket science. Developers aren’t denigrating the environment – we know that we have to control stormwater, sediment and manage wastewater and so on.”

He said people, not the environment, were Council’s greatest asset.

“It’s people that matter. Who cares whether or not a waterway is polluted if there’s no-one there to see it?”

Submissions of the proposed District Plan close on December 18.