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The Environment Court has given the go ahead for seven "eco tourist" lodges at Te Arai Pt, which agencies say is the only large piece of private undeveloped beachfront along the northeast coast of the Auckland region.
The lodge development will adjoin the prominent headland south of Mangawhai and north of Pakiri Beach.
In addition, the pine forest of Te Arai Beach is the subject of a planning bid to build 850 forest homes and a 200-unit village resort.
While that proposal will face a strong challenge on environmental grounds at public hearings, the eco-lodge bid was processed by councils without public notification.
The court's decision follows an interim ruling it gave more than three years ago when developer Eyres Eco-Park appealed about a non-complying subdivision proposal on the site to create nine rural residential lots.
The court said then that although the proposal had some merit, it could not grant consent until the proposal took into account adverse visual, cumulative and landscape effects and until other land use and regional council consents had been obtained.
Rodney District Council had earlier declined the proposal.
Much of the last three years has been consumed by an appeal to the High Court on points of law and a subsequent Court of Appeal bid, which led to the case being referred back to the Environment Court.
In a reserved decision, Judge Laurie Newhook said after mediation, the parties drafted a set of conditions which were not, at that point, to the satisfaction of the court.
The court was concerned that if the developer were not to vest a piece of land as reserve until the last stage of development, then certain bush and other ecological features on that lot needed to be protected in the interim.
Judge Newhook said the parties came back with further drafts of conditions of consent relating to the subdivision and consents from the district council and earthworks and stormwater permits from the Auckland Regional Council.
Grazing animals will be banned from the sites - once grazed by cattle and goats - so the bush can recover.
The sites are near a major breeding site for endangered bird species and domestic cats are banned and dogs must be kept on a leash or muzzled. One of the sites will be replanted to screen buildings from public areas such as Te Arai Pt Reserve.
Te Arai Preservation Society chairman Mark Walker said the society did not know of the scheme until it was too late to press for public comment.
Its focus was on preparing a case against the much bigger housing, resort, golf course and coastal park proposed by a joint venture of Maori-owned Renaissance Group and developer New Zealand Land Trust.
The district council is yet to announce a hearing date for the necessary zoning change.
