KEY POINTS:
As many of us head home from summer holidays at the beach, it is timely to reflect on the state of the nation's coasts. It is not always a pretty sight.
Every year more houses sprawl along our coastline, occupying beachfronts and extending on to visually sensitive headlands and ridgelines. Buildings are inexorably intruding on all of our wild coastal places.
A good example of this trend can be found on the coast connecting Auckland and Whangarei. This area contains some of New Zealand's most stunning coastline, including numerous sandy beaches, rocky headlands, sandspits, estuaries and coastal islands.
Some beaches along this coastline were developed during the postwar boom years, as growing numbers of mobile Aucklanders established family baches. These modest structures were generally located in discrete beach settlements surrounded by long stretches of coastal farmland.
The current coastal development boom is now threatening to eat up the remaining rural coastal areas, connecting the existing settlements together into one long urban sprawl from Auckland to Whangarei and beyond.
Back in 1999, for example, consent was granted to subdivide and develop the south headland of Pakiri and to construct seven houses on the ridgeline overlooking the beach. Pakiri is the only lengthy beach along this northern coastline that has remained largely undeveloped.
It was saved only by the commendable actions of the Auckland Regional Council, which subsequently purchased the land for a regional park in 2005. The land cost the council $9 million and an adjacent property was purchased for more than $10 million. These high costs mean that public acquisition will only ever be an answer in a very small number of cases.
Further up the same beach, a plan change has been lodged to construct 850 houses, a resort and golf course at Te Arai Pt. This is just south of the rapidly sprawling Mangawhai, which is itself being heavily subdivided and has ample capacity to accommodate growth for decades to come.
Just to the north of Mangawhai, Bream Tail has been subdivided to provide for 41 houses and consent is being sought to subdivide the hills overlooking the nearby Langs Beach into 45 lots.
Further up Bream Bay, a private plan has been lodged to develop the sandspit on the northern banks of the Waipu River to provide for up to 230 houses and a nine-hole golf course. And just a little further north again, on the already heavily developed Tutukaka coast, there is a proposal to subdivide the Ngunguru spit to provide for 350 houses.
Under the current coastal management regime, virtually all of this coast is open for development. Apart from the few reserves and regional parks already secured, there is no certainty that any of the coastline will remain rural.
Successive Governments have put robust coastal management in the "too hard" basket and this is not good enough.
We can learn a lot from other places, where Governments have protected the public interest through fronting up to the challenge of managing strong development pressure on their coasts.
In California the independent California Coastal Commission has overseen the management of the Californian coast since 1972. The commission was established through a direct voter initiative generated from concern that local governments lacked the will and muscle to prevent the coast from being despoiled.
The commission approves coastal plans prepared by local authorities and also directly determines some coastal development permits. Coastal councils have also operated successfully in New South Wales and Victoria to provide strategic planning and independent oversight of government decision-making.
The state governments of New South Wales and Queensland have also developed regional spatial plans for their coastlines which identify where future growth will be accommodated and which prohibit development in sensitive coastal areas with high conservation, landscape or rural production values.
Leaving decision-making on coastal development to local councils, as we do in New Zealand, is a recipe for disaster.
Small cash-hungry rural councils indiscriminately welcome coastal development as it brings sorely needed income to help fund council activities and infrastructure upgrades.
The three-yearly local body election cycle encourages council decision-making to focus on short-term local issues. And in small communities, those financially benefiting from development such as landowners and developers can exert undue influence.
What we need is a politically independent body, a New Zealand coastal commission, to oversee the management of our coast in the national public interest.
Such a commission could develop a national coastal strategy and spatial plan which would provide a robust framework to guide local-level decision-making and ensure that areas of accessible undeveloped coastline are preserved.
The idea of establishing a coastal commission is not new in New Zealand. It was hotly debated during the 1970s and received widespread support from organisations such as the Ministry of Works and the Institute of Surveyors.
Former Prime Minister Mike Moore introduced the Coastal Moratorium and Management Bill into Parliament in 1975. This provided for the establishment of a coastal planning commission which was to have sole jurisdiction over planning and development of coastal land extending 1km inland from mean high water.
Now is the time for the Government to take action and create a coastal commission. We need to take coastal development out of the hands of local councils.
* Raewyn Peart is a senior policy analyst with the Environmental Defence Society and is researching coastal development issues for a book. See www.eds.org.nz
