Editorial: Urban sprawl threatens our coasts

This summer, as for generations past, much of New Zealand has fled from the pressures of urban living to the freedom of the seaside. And what do we find when we get there? The bad weather apart, we often find the urban environment we thought we had left behind. Inexorably, and with increasing speed, the coastline is being developed; intensive subdivisions are rising where once only two or three baches stood; magnificent mansions are replacing humble Fibrolite shacks; sealed roads and shopping malls are spreading across what were previously empty paddocks.

In the Coromandel, one of the favoured places for Aucklanders to get away from it all, Environment Waikato reports that 70 per cent of beaches and dunes already have houses on them. That trend looks set to continue because Statistics New Zealand forecasts a population increase of up to 30 per cent for the Thames-Coromandel District in the next 20 years. Other regions can tell a similar tale.

The drivers of this headlong dash are not difficult to identify. On the one hand a growing population and increased affluence mean vastly more people want to live the Kiwi dream of owning a place at the beach. On the other hand, soaring land prices mean coastal landowners are eager to profit from this demand. And who can blame either group?

Unfortunately there is a downside to the stampede to the coast. Many coastal communities are now suburbia-by-the-sea and hard to differentiate from Glenfield or Glen Innes. The wild places where New Zealanders once went to escape from the daily grind are becoming an endangered species. Soaring prices, boosted by foreign investors looking for their own slice of paradise, are far out of the reach of the average family. There is a risk of much of the coast becoming the preserve of the wealthy and the overseas visitor. Any seaside development, no matter how well conceived, inevitably creates environmental problems. Coastal habitat is destroyed, fish and shellfish harvested, birdlife frightened away, beaches strewn with rubbish and seawater polluted.

It is not all bad news. Some farsighted councils and developers have combined to produce coastal subdivisions which preserve the ambience and maintain public access while still generating profits for landowners and allowing a lucky few to enjoy a magical lifestyle. But that approach is far from universal and in any case is no panacea.

A broader solution will not be easy to find. Restricting coastal development will itself create many anomalies, depriving some landowners of a multi-million-dollar bonanza and pushing property values even further out of the reach of ordinary people. Nevertheless, some action does have to be taken to safeguard the remaining undeveloped areas. The Resource Management Act may make it difficult for entrepreneurs to build new factories but it is clearly not protecting the coastline. The National Coastal Policy Statement, which is supposed to set standards for the coastal environment, appears to be having little practical impact on district plans or resource consent applications.

None of this is news to the Government. It has introduced amendments to the RMA intended to give more weight to national policy statements. It has also accepted a recommendation from an expert reviewer that the National Coastal Policy Statement should be rewritten to make it more effective. But unless the pace of policymaking accelerates to at least match that of coastal development the horse will have well and truly bolted long before the stable door is finally latched shut.

The Government placed a moratorium on further aquaculture developments while it belatedly sorted out its policy because there was a real risk of every bay sporting a shellfish farm. The point is being reached where something similar may have to be done to stop the coastline from disappearing under an urban sprawl.