KEY POINTS:
The Auckland Regional Council is taking steps to preserve an endangered species - the humble bach.
It plans to restore some old baches on land it owns near Snells Beach and hire them out to the public.
The council is concerned that the trend for baches with basic facilities to be replaced by luxurious homes is killing off the tradition of a bach holiday.
"People are being priced out of the beachfront and baches forced out in favour of big holiday homes," said ARC parks chairwoman Sandra Coney.
"Kids don't get the opportunities of my generation to stay on a beachfront and wake up to the lapping sound of water, to take a boat out and fish and have a barbecue on the beach at night."
She said a chance for the council to help to keep bach holidays part of New Zealanders' childhood memories arose when it bought land near Snells Beach for a new regional park containing a cluster of baches.
They were typical of little bach communities that sprang up on farmland near a beach, river or lake half a century ago and are vanishing.
The Scandrett family, who farmed the land for 130 years, leased waterfront plots for people to build a small bach or camp or bring a caravan.
Photographer Geoff Moon built one of the baches in the 1950s with friend Charles Light, of the Auckland School of Architecture.
They called it Moonlight. Other baches belonged to the Grahams and Coldhams and generations of their families had holidays there.
When the ARC bought the farm in 1998, it intended to clear the beachfront cluster once the leases expired, because it was prime picnic space.
But Ms Coney said she thought it was a historic park with its remnants of coastal farming, such as the old homestead, boatshed and dairy and the baches were another layer of history.
Two years ago, the council agreed to keep some of the baches and spend $300,000 over three years to restore three of them, including upgrading the septic tank system.
It was hoped to have at least two of the baches, furnished in an appropriate 50s style, ready for hire in November. Scandrett Regional Park is 82km from downtown Auckland, via Warkworth.
ARC Parks already hires out two baches at nearby Scott Point and nightly rates vary from $60 to $120 according to the day and season.
