John Edgar: Act before essence of Waitakeres is lost

John Edgar

A Herald editorial lamenting the loss of our northern coastline to bad development and calling for action hit the mark. Closer to home, we have another environmental crisis that is in danger of slipping from sight: rampant subdivision and development in the Waitakere Ranges, especially on the eastern, city-facing slopes.

The iconic view looking west from Auckland is getting built out and seems on an inexorable track towards eventual urbanisation. Something needs to be done about it.

The Waitakere City Council might argue that something is being done. It is consulting the community (for the umpteenth time) about whether to protect the ranges.

You might think this was a no-brainer. Yes, there will always be a few landowners who want to make a fast buck and run. Yes, there are professional developers who are getting into the frame and cutting up larger lots into a proliferation of smaller ones. These people will oppose anything smacking of environmental protection.

But an independent Colmar Brunton poll last year showed more than 80 per cent support among Aucklanders and local residents for permanent protection of the Waitakere Ranges. Other broader surveys have reinforced that finding by demonstrating the high value placed by New Zealanders on environmental quality and lifestyle.

We know that the Waitakere Ranges parkland is protected, but the private land on its periphery is under pressure from Auckland's bulging population. It used to be a slow process of degradation - what the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment called death by a thousand cuts. But now development is rampant.

Ironically, for a self-styled eco-city, the Waitakere City Council has turned into the biggest subdivider of all. It periodically adopts changes to its district plan to carve up wide swathes of the city-facing slopes of the ranges. It has been responsible for hundreds of new lots on those slopes in the past five years and wants to create more.

But the effect of such subdivision is that more houses are constructed and buildings become more and more dominant in the landscape. With each new wave of development the outstanding, iconic, natural values of the area that Aucklanders love are further diminished. And make no mistake: we are on an inexorable path to full urbanisation.

The Waitakere Ranges Protection Society's experience over more than 30 years of advocacy is of increasing bursts of development across the ranges. We need to put a firm and effective stop to that or the relative wilderness right next door to the city will be lost forever.

Sure, we make submissions and go to court to try to hold the line, but we cannot win everything. As the old adage of conservationists goes, our victories are often temporary but our defeats permanent.

The idea is to change all that by permanently protecting the ranges by special legislation. A Waitakere Ranges heritage bill could prohibit further subdivision other than for special and limited reasons. Importantly, it should also enshrine existing rights of landowners under the district plan to do what they can do now with their land - but in its present configuration.

If subdivision is allowed now under the plan provisions, whether by structure plan or otherwise, it should be allowed to continue. But then no more. The fragmentation of the ranges into smaller and smaller lots is the problem.

The Resource Management Act is not up to the task of preventing that. That act is one of the few remaining products of the new right experiment in the 1980s. It is permissive. It reduced the powers of councils to plan strategically about where development should and should not be permitted. Plans made under it are routinely challenged by developers, who often prevail and get more permissive rules.

And if they don't prevail and get a plan allowing more subdivision, they can still come along with non-complying proposals that have to be assessed and often get approved. Contrary to popular belief, the act works better for developers than for conservationists.

So special legislation is needed. The city council will make a decision on whether to support that approach next month. West Auckland Labour MPs, including the Minister of Conservation, Chris Carter, are all supportive and have agreed to introduce a bill and support its passage through Parliament. The chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee, and local members Paul Walbran and Sandra Coney strongly support the initiative. Mayor Bob Harvey says he supports legislation. So, too, does the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Morgan Williams.

But will the council deliver? It should. It has been dining out on the eco-city idea for years. Now it is crunch time.

The fear is that it might produce a weak and ineffective bill. The bill must address subdivision in a robust fashion. A bill drafted last year by the Environmental Defence Society is the kind of legislation that is wanted - something with teeth in preventing subdivision while clearly entrenching all the current rights of landowners.

It has been done elsewhere. The Canadians have successfully enacted local legislation to put curbs on subdivision on the Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine in Ontario.

A bill is before our own Parliament to give greater protection to an area of Fiordland. The English and Welsh have protected their outstanding landscapes on private land since the 1940s.

We need to get the pioneering, exploitative ethic out of our system and face up to the fact that in the Auckland region, at least, we need more tools to protect our special places. We cannot continue to "mine" them for subdivision.

National legislation would be the ideal but there's no sign of that on the horizon. So let's develop a local solution and show that Aucklanders are capable of responding responsibly to our environmental challenges.

* John Edgar is the president of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society.