KEY POINTS:
A developer has applied for consent to build 150 houses in the "green belt" that stops Auckland pushing further north.
Williams Capital said yesterday the consent bid for the Weiti Forest met all zone requirements of the Rodney District Council. The move has prompted a move to rally official support for the 900ha coastal forest, or most of it, to become a national park.
Rodney District councillor Colin MacGillivray said he would ask today's council meeting to look into how it could control all the land's coastal eastern area and the Okura catchment as a park.
Mr MacGillivray said Williams Capital's proposal drew opposition at a recent public meeting. "Unless action is taken now the houses proposed by the developer will complete the urbanisation of Auckland's entire eastern coastline - from Howick to Hatfields Beach."
Mr MacGillivray said the council could change the district plan to stop houses going up at Karepiro Bay and instead allow less conspicuous development in the north of the site - about 3km from the sea and close to the proposed Penlink tollway to Stillwater and Whangaparaoa.
Alternatively, a council-controlled entity could buy the land - paid for by the sale of housing lots in the northern area. Williams Capital principal Evan Williams said most residents of southeast Rodney were comfortable with the company's application, which was "an extreme form of underdevelopment". The zone allowed a development area of 216ha but the proposal sought 73ha.
Last year, the company offered a 300ha park in return for rights to develop 25 per cent of the property, with features such as an eco village and two golf courses.
The park would have included a large part of the Okura catchment, which has featured in planning battles over the years, with groups anxious to protect the ecology of the Okura Estuary and the Okura-Long Bay Marine Reserve.
Talks with the district council and the Auckland Regional Council resulted in the offer being declined and the councils asking that development stay within the existing zone provisions.
Mr Williams said: "We are quite comfortable with that zone and operating within it."
Dacre Cottage committee chairman Peter Townend heads a campaign to stop development and raise funds to buy the land.
He said the developer would subdivide the hills overlooking the paddock behind the historic cottage, and he feared for continued public access to the area.
Thinking small
216ha: Area of coastal green belt forest which could be developed.
73ha: Area which developer wants to turn into subdivision, "an extreme form of underdevelopment".
