'Carved up': Government moves to protect Hawke's Bay growing land

Government has hatched a plan to better protect the country's fertile soils. Photo / NZME

Decades of banging-away at governments for better protection of growing land in the face of demand for urban housing has started to bear fruit with a statement made in a local orchard.

With the first steps coming into effect immediately, the plan was revealed in the Hawke's Bay Sunday-afternoon sunlight by Minister for the Environment David Parker at the orchard at King Rd, Brookfields, near Meeanee.

Among those present were Hastings District Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst, whose community has argued longest and hardest on both sides of the issue; Ikaroa Rawhiti, Associate Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Food Safety Meka Whaitiri (returning barely 24 hours from talking up the New Zealand food industry in India), and horticulturist Paul Paynter, whose family have been growers in Hawke's Bay for 160 years.

The National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL) will enforce planning requirements on councils to be implemented variously over the next five years, and will enhance protection for the country's most productive land, providing security for both the domestic food supply and primary exports, Parker said.

"We need to house our people and to feed them too," he said. "Our cities and towns need to grow, but not at the expense of the land that's best suited to grow our food."

Councils will be required to identify, map and manage highly productive land to ensure land is available for growing vegetables, fruit, and other primary production.

In a prepared statement, Agriculture and Trade Minister Damien O'Connor said highly productive land provides food for New Zealanders, significant economic and employment benefits to communities, and underpins the value of New Zealand's primary sector.

"Our Fit for a Better World roadmap that we developed with the sector will add $44 billion over 10 years to our primary sector exports, but is dependent on maintaining access to our highly productive soils," O'Connor said.

Parker, who shovelled his own casual sample of the soil quality in the field, said that over the last 20 years, about 35,000 hectares of New Zealand's most highly productive land had been "carved up" for urban or rural residential development, while 170,000ha of it been converted to lifestyle blocks.

Whaitiri said the Government has worked closely with local authorities, industry, growers, and Māori organisations to develop a policy that is workable and fit-for-purpose.

Minister for the Environment David Parker (left) and orchardist Paul Paynter on Sunday afternoon. Photo / Doug Laing

Councils, in limited circumstances, will still be able to rezone highly-productive land for urban housing if less productive land is not available, or if certain tests can be met. But the Government says NPS-HPL will introduce strong restrictions on the use of highly productive land for new rural lifestyle developments.

It will be transitioned into the two Acts replacing the Resource Management Act – the Spatial Planning Act (SPA) and the Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA).

Mayor Hazlehurst, who was one of the thousands in Hawke's Bay who started working life picking apples and peaches and working in packing sheds, was "very pleased" with the progress, and said her council has already taken steps which were to place the district ahead of many others "in the interests of protecting what we call the 'Golden Goose'."

Paynter said he'd been "going on" about the issue for 20 years or more, stressing the value of the "soils", and how "incredibly important" it is to "stop building on top of them."