Coastal playground to be carved from Super City

A view of Omaha beach. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Auckland's coastal playground from Waiwera north is set to be taken out of the Auckland Super City in a move with long-term environmental, planning and financial effects.

Local leaders are surprised to hear that the Government is planning to split Rodney District in two, leaving urban Whangaparaoa and Orewa in the Super City and the area north of Waiwera being merged with Kaipara District Council.

That would leave popular weekend and holiday spots such as Warkworth, Snells Beach, Matakana, Omaha and Pakiri being controlled from the small and financially strapped Kaipara council in Dargaville.

The seven regional parks north of Waiwera, including Wenderholm and Tawharanui, would continue to be owned and operated by the Super City.

The split is understood to be a compromise to appease a strong desire, particularly among northern rural communities, to be excluded from the Super Auckland Council.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said there had been no consultation, and predicted huge consequences.

These included long established Auckland planning controls being removed, a free-for-all by property developers and financial pressure to tap into Auckland's transport, water and sewerage facilities.

"Auckland ratepayers currently help pay for services in Rodney and Kaipara, including public transport, stormwater management, biosecurity and pest control," he said.

"If the northern boundary was changed, the money for these services would need to be found elsewhere."

Rodney District Council has been pushing for the whole district to be a run by a stand-alone authority with the functions of a regional council.

Mayor Penny Webster said the council was appalled that the Government would consider splitting Rodney.

"All it is going to do is to deliver to the people of northern Rodney an uneconomic entity.

"Kaipara is a non-growth area ... How are they going to deal with the problems of sewage and water in our area?"

Mrs Webster said that in her view, Rodney should be "all in or all out" of the Super City.

Last night, Kaipara Mayor Neil Tiller reiterated his council's submission to the Auckland governance select committee last month that its preferred option for Kaipara was the status quo.

Any change would result in a "double blow" for Kaipara ratepayers - higher operating costs and reduced Government funding for roading.

But if change was imposed, he said, the Government should look to the Kaipara Harbour, where people were passionate about their harbour and waterways.

"The same cannot be said for the Rodney communities south of the Dome and east of the Kaipara Harbour catchment," he said.

"These people are Hauraki Gulf-focused people and have aspirations that are more urban - cafe and vineyard - rather than the rural and fishing lifestyle of the Kaipara."

The Royal Commission on Auckland Governance recommended no change to the northern boundary.

It said the Super Auckland Council should retain control of areas outside the official urban boundaries to protect the amenity of rural and urban people, landscape, coastal and ecological values, water quality and to keep productive land for food production.

The commission said the current fragmentation of the Kaipara Harbour was undesirable, but to have the whole Kaipara catchment under one regional authority would be impracticable.

A spokeswoman for Local Government Minister Rodney Hide said it was up to the select committee to make a recommendation on the northern boundary.

The select committee will table a report with its recommendations in Parliament on September 4.