Editorial: End dithering over the Waitakeres

There can have been few more thorough pieces of consultation than that concerning the planned special protection for the Waitakere Ranges. The Waitakere City Council has left little to chance in seeking to ensure that all and sundry are aware of the contents of the Waitakere Ranges National Heritage Area Bill. Late last year, it went so far as to pay a consultant to give advice on whether it was consulting properly.

Now it has been revealed that rates expenditure on the project, of which consultation would contribute a substantial portion, has pushed up over $500,000. That suggests not a painstaking exercise but a city council suffering from the faintest of hearts. And a group of councillors failing to uphold the best interests and sentiment of their ratepayers.

Legislation like this will never attract unanimous backing. Any proposal to impose strict rules on development and subdivision goes to the core of the clash between private property rights and community conservation values. No matter how many public meetings are held or pamphlets distributed, there will always be disagreement. In particular, some landowners will always refuse to cede what they consider, however mistakenly, their absolute right.

Yet an outstanding feature of the Waitakere Ranges proposal has been the clarity and consistency of support. A Colmar Brunton poll in the middle of last year showed 81 per cent of Waitakere City residents supported legislation to give permanent protection to the ranges, including the foothills. That level of backing has remained fairly much steady.

The support is well-merited. Auckland's burgeoning growth is placing increasing pressure on the areas at its fringe. None is treasured more than the Waitakeres, but their unique quality, character and value is being compromised by subdivisions sanctioned by existing environmental management and planning procedures. The damage is occasioned not so much by individual developments as by their cumulative impact. It is a process that Morgan Williams, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, described, quite accurately, as death by a thousand cuts.

The Waitakere Ranges National Heritage Area Bill seeks to bring a sense of strategy, vision and co-ordination to development by establishing a new category of protected land. The aim is to provide greater community input into the ranges' style and character. It is not perfect; Dr Williams has said there will be an outbreak of litigation if clauses specifying landowners' rights are not added. But the bill's good points, and its sense of purpose, far outweigh this lack of clarity, which can be tackled as it moves through the parliamentary process.

The Auckland Regional Council has recognised as much, in declaring its unanimous backing for the draft legislation. So has the Minister of Conservation, who has pledged to guide it through Parliament. The original idea was to have the bill introduced to Parliament this month, and to have it passed during the life of the present Government. This would have been a perfectly acceptable timetable, given that debate on such protection has been raging for more than a decade. The Waitakere City Council would have ensured that schedule was met by approving the bill expeditiously. Instead, its dithering over consultation has rendered enactment this term out of the question.

The Waitakere Ranges bill incorporates a new style of special protective legislation. Until now, development has been left in the hands of an environmental management law that pays little heed to strategy or vision, and to local body plans, which wax and wane over time. The Waitakere Ranges deserve better than that. Waitakere residents have said as much, and, according to polling, their view is shared by a substantial majority of Aucklanders. Only the Waitakere City Council is dragging the chain.