Posted: 19 January 2007
Committee rejects Parua Bay reclamation
A Regional Council committee has declined an application to reclaim an almost 120-metre long section of coast to allow road access to a proposed Parua Bay subdivision – and is recommending the Conservation Minister do the same.
A and T Properties Limited wants to reclaim a 119-metre long, five-metre wide area of Ritchie Rd to provide an eight-metre wide road required by the Whangarei District Council’s roading division for a 20-lot subdivision the developer is proposing.
The company’s application to the Northland Regional Council for the consents needed for the reclamation was publicly notified in August last year, attracting 131 submissions. Of those submissions, all but one (which was neutral) opposed the application.
A three-member Northland Regional Council Hearings Committee – chaired by Regional Council Chairman Mark Farnsworth – heard A and T’s application at a hearing in Whangarei last month.
In its just-released decision, the Committee declines the applications for the extension of existing authorised structures, removal of an existing seawall, erection and occupation of the proposed seawall, discharge of stormwater and earthworks in the riparian management zone.
The length of the proposed reclamation means it would also require approval from the Conservation Minister, however, the Committee has recommended the Minister also turn the application down.
The Committee determined the overall adverse environmental effects would be “more than minor” and the application was contrary to objectives and policies of the NRC’s Regional Coastal Plan for Northland.
Committee members visited the site of the proposed reclamation late last month, observing the scale of the proposal was “quite significant in the context of this bay”.
They felt the scale of the proposal, with its new rock wall and groyne, would be visually obtrusive and change the beach’s character.
Similarly, “while the Committee accepts that it is technically feasible to relocate the beach, the advocated proposal which has been tailored to fit within the legal boundaries of the designated road reserve results in a solution that is less than satisfactory.”
The Committee accepted expert advice called by opponents of the proposal that the structure recommended by the applicant’s expert to anchor the northern end of the re-established beach “is inadequately dimensioned with the very real potential for progressive sand loss from the relocated beach”.