By New Zealand standards New Chums right now is not exactly wilderness. It is a kilometre from Whangapoua, the walk takes less than 30 minutes and there was a steady stream of people on the track with us. The development controversy has no doubt increased the traffic, residents of Whangapoua have erected home-made signs to point cars in the right direction.
"Ironically," says the applicant's resource management consultant in his report, "this increased profile has become such that in peak summer holiday periods the heavy usage by visitors arriving from both land and sea is now such as to often detract from the very remoteness and unspoilt natural coastal character for which it has become renowned".
A little further on, he says peak summer daily visitors "numbering in the hundreds" include "people with pleasure craft which generate noise from outboard motors, jetskis and the like". There was not a boat in the bay the day we were there.
It is not exactly wilderness but there is something special about a beach that can be reached only on foot, yet so easily that infants and pensioners can enjoy the trek. It seems important to the character of New Zealand that we preserve places such as this.
But property rights are important, too. The land, including the bluffs and the beach, is owned by Ross and Deidre Mear and businessman George Kerr. The Mears have been farming it for 12 years. They want to retire the farm, divide their 60-hectare block into four lots and put a conservation covenant over the bulk of the property. It is not going to be coastal suburbia, not another Matarangi or an extension of Whangapoua.
New Chums Beach could be a case study for the reform of the Resource Management Act (RMA) announced this week. Since the Mears' application will be subject to the act as it stands, it does not look likely to get consent. Among "matters of national importance" set out in Part 2 of the act is, "The preservation of the natural character of the coastal environment and its protection from inappropriate subdivision, use and development".
Local bodies have to reflect these purposes in their district plans and decisions.
The Government is proposing to add economic considerations to the matters of national importance. Among them, Nick Smith said, will be an explicit recognition of property rights.
"There always has to be a balance between the rights of people to use their own land and the wider community interests but the pendulum has swung too far."
Generally, I agree. I worry that we may be passing up a great deal of national wealth by locking up so much of our sublime coastal attractions. A few Club Meds would hardly be noticed among so many lonely bays in remote landscapes.
But this is a case where the present environment trumps any economic need I can see. We are well supplied with land for housing on the coast of northeastern Coromandel. New Chums Beach with its surrounding cliffs of regenerating native bush is worth preserving. It is good to know there is farmland behind the bluffs, not roads to houses looking down on its seclusion. Farming is a sufficient property right.
Opponents of the changes to the RMA argue that the addition of economic values to its principles and purposes would mean the environment loses every time. But if it turns out the New Chums proposal is delayed long enough to be considered under more balanced law, I still wouldn't bet on its consent.
