Showdown looms over boundary for Waitakeres

Waitakere City councillors face a crucial vote today in the long-running and emotive debate over whether special legislation should protect the Waitakere Ranges.

The question of a boundary for the protected area has to be settled before the council decides later this month whether to support the draft bill's going to Parliament.

Councillor Vanessa Neeson will call today for any legislation to only include parkland and private land in the foothills where owners want it.

She said the debate was splitting the city. "The anger out there is something I'm sorry to see and it doesn't have to happen like this."

Mayor Bob Harvey wants to shift the focus from what the bill does not allow to the potential offered by protection in a heritage area. The ranges, he said, could host lifestyle businesses which were compatible with the environment.

He suggested replacing obsolete styles of land use with accommodation, restaurants, wineries, galleries, craft outlets and a farm market.

But Mr Harvey has consented to a petition, signed by 1000 residents, being presented today in opposition to the draft bill.

Petition organisers Alan Wagstaff and John Newdick, of Structure Plan Advocates Network, said: "[The petitioners] gave their names and addresses - unlike the council's survey where the responses, coming from anyone, anywhere, have generated the folklore of 74 per cent support for the legislation."

The network's petition calls on the council to refrain from using legislation as a means to control land use in the rural areas, including the privately owned ranges, bush-living areas, foothills and other margins of the ranges.

Voluntary inclusion in the heritage area is opposed in a report prepared by council officers Jenny Fuller and Graeme Campbell for today's meeting.

They say legislation is not necessary to achieve a voluntarily protected patchwork of land. The benefits of a voluntary approach are certainly insufficient to warrant special legislation and is unlikely to get the support of the Auckland Regional Council.

The report says a proposed boundary for legislation is intended to include both public and private land in order to achieve integrated management.

The boundary was supported by 55 per cent of people surveyed and 60 per cent of landowners.

Subdivision on private land could harm the landscape and ecological values, while public land was already safeguarded against it.

It would be extremely difficult to provide an integrated management framework when landowners could choose whether it applied to their land.

People could conclude that areas not included were in less need of protection or that the areas were available for further development. Such an approach could be contrary to the Resource Management Act.

The regional council gave the bill its support in February.

Waitakere representative on the regional council Paul Walbran said today's vote was critical to the success of the bill.

"The Neeson proposal will emasculate the legislation," he said.

Voluntary exclusion meant unsympathetic development could take place in the foothills and coastal villages.