Significant Natural Areas cause concern for landowners

An Auckland Council request to undertake an ecological survey on 252 properties in rural Rodney has ruffled the feathers of a number of affected landholders.

A meeting between landowners, including members of the Landowners and Contractors Protection Association, and Council heritage representatives was held at the Wellsford RSA, on December 12, to discuss a letter sent in October.

The letter sought permission for Council staff to access properties to undertake the survey, as part of work on assessing Significant Natural Areas (SNAs).

Council heritage manager Noel Reardon says there are 298 SNAs identified in the operative Rodney District Plan maps. The SNAs are important for protecting watersheds and marine ecosystems, helping to conserve soils, prevent flooding, sequester carbon, shelter people and wildlife, and for supporting native species.

Mr Reardon said the purpose of the Wellsford meeting was to start a conversation with concerned landowners and answer any questions they might have.

“This survey is part of an evaluation process so that a schedule of SNAs can be included in the Unitary Plan, which will replace existing regional and district plans,” he said. “While most of these areas have been surveyed, not all the current information is correct. We felt the best way to get accurate information was to talk to landowners.”

However, many of the landowners felt the meeting should have been held before the letters were sent. Concerns were raised about Council staff coming on to properties, about what would be classified as ‘significant’ and the implications of a SNA classification.

In a report presented to Council’s Parks Recreation and Heritage Forum last month, Natural Heritage principal specialist John Sawyer and team leader Jenny Fuller noted that, while Council was legally able to visit properties for any purpose connected with the preparation or review of statutory plans, sites were only being visited with the agreement of landowners. Where no permission was obtained, sites were being checked from adjacent public land, where possible.

Their report said that the Auckland Plan identified environmental degradation as a critical challenge for the next 30 years.

“The plan highlights major environmental issues such as poor fresh water quality, declining biodiversity, sedimentation, degraded lake water quality and the effects of animal and plant pests,” the report said. “Of utmost importance in Auckland is the management of development to ensure that it does not occur at the expense of the features that make Auckland unique. An acknowledgement that nature and people are inseparable is a strategic direction that makes it imperative to identify and protect Auckland’s significant natural areas.”

Council is proposing a six step process to identify sites of indigenous vegetation or habitats of indigenous fauna that could be scheduled as SNAs in the Unitary Plan:

Stage 1: Review all existing information about indigenous vegetation and habitats of indigenous fauna in Auckland.

Stage 2: Confirm existing scheduled sites –

• Existing sites including PARPS (Existing and Proposed ARPS Sites); District Plan scheduled sites (additional to those already included in the PARPS Schedule); and QEII covenants.

• Select a representative selection of them for survey to ensure they are still significant.

• Where significant, carry over existing SNAs into the Unitary Plan.

Stage 3: Identify additional sites using Gap Analysis –

• Carry out a desktop assessment using aerial photos.

• For sites that have the potential to be SNAs, write to landowners to ask permission for survey and carry out survey if permission is given.

Stage 4: Develop criteria for determining significance of natural areas and apply to all sites to create a single Auckland-wide SNA schedule.

Stage 5: Develop a regulatory and non-regulatory framework of rules and incentives for the protection and restoration of SNAs in the Unitary Plan.

Stage 6: Undertake further consultation with owners of SNAs prior to notification of Unitary Plan and then finalise the Unitary Plan SNA schedule.

A first draft of a schedule of significant natural areas is expected to be complete by the end of March this year. After this (and prior to the legal notification of the Unitary Plan in early 2013) all owners of properties with areas identified as SNAs will be contacted to advise them of the proposed schedule. They will be given an opportunity to discuss this identification with the Council and asked for their feedback. 

A further opportunity for submissions on the schedule will occur once the Unitary Plan is notified in 2013.

Meanwhile, at a recent hearing on Significant Natural Areas in the Waiwera area, Hearings Panel chair Alan Watson said that he believed Council could usefully investigate the provision of a package to landowners affected by SNAs that included information such as:

• A map of the SNA
• Relevance of the SNA to the landowner
• What Council assistance may be available through rates relief and other measures
• Pest control measures
• Fencing measures
• The uses that are permitted or that are limited within the SNAs.

Pictured: Rodney landowners had plenty of questions for Auckland Council heritage manager Noel Reardon about their land being recognised as a Significant Natural Area.

Published 18 January 2012