Fears Snells subdivision court appeal could set precedent

Snells Beach residents living near land where developers want to rip out rural paddocks and build a 24-lot subdivision are continuing their fight against the scheme.

Neighbours surrounding the potential site at 124 Mahurangi East Road have erected roadside signs, started a petition and set up a ‘Just Say No’ website, and they are urging others to support them, as they say it could set a dangerous precedent if allowed.

Remuera-based Silver Hill Ltd’s resource consent application was turned down in December by a panel of independent commissioners, who agreed with Auckland Council’s planner that effects on the environment and neighbours would be unacceptable. However, in Feburary an appeal against that decision was lodged in the Environment Court.

The original application was categorised as non-complying because it flew in the face of the land’s current residential – large lot zoning, which would allow just four new homes on the 1.6 hectare block instead of the 24 being applied for. Nearly 30 local residents made submissions opposing the proposal at the time.

Melody Nightingale lives in Lett Road, which runs along the back of the land. She says it is frustrating that the developers are persisting with their plans, despite council and commissioners agreeing that the subdivision was inappropriate for the tree-lined paddocks.

“This is not just about 124 Mahu East

Road, though. These developers are trying to set a precedent here,” she says. “If this is allowed, what’s to stop them making similar applications for any other residential – large lot zones?

“If they can sidestep the zoning rules and the Auckland Unitary Plan, they stand to make a healthy profit at the expense of the local community, the environment and taxpayers, who foot the bill for this abuse of the Resource Management Act.”

There are blocks of residential large lot land in several places in Mahurangi, including Algies Bay, Point Wells, Snells Beach and most of Sandspit. The land is usually on the edge of a settlement and surrounded by land zoned as rural coastal or countryside living.

Nightingale says Auckland Council and the applicants need reminding of what the Auckland Unitary plan is there for “to protect us from reckless development like this”.

“Developers have no right to abuse the system, wasting thousands upon thousands of taxpayers’ dollars, trying their luck and bulldozing through the processes designed to protect our environment and communities,” she says. “Enough is enough.”

The group of neighbours will present a petition to council before a pre-court hearing mediation session scheduled for May 2, asking officers to stand strong in their refusal of the proposal.

Info: https://sites.google.com/ view/124manurangieastroad/home

Christine Rose christine.rose25@gmail.com

The beauty and the beast

This year’s storm and cyclone disasters have ramped up ecological anxiety for many of us worried about the state of the finite, fragile blue and green planet Earth. You don’t have to be directly affected to be impacted. The stress is extra for those who are still unable to access their homes and have had to leave precious pets and belongings behind in the wake of the storms.

Technology reaches new heights – literally, while the wonders and limits of nature seem more profound. Space X strings lights across the heavens providing internet access to the most remote places, while aurora Australis drapes red, yellow and green for many to see. Bioluminescence on beaches looks like living magic, but microplastics and forever chemicals are found in the smallest of lives, including our own. I’ve sat in my kayak over summer (what summer? you might ask), afloat in peaceful places like the Marlborough Sounds and the Mahurangi Harbour, crying amidst the beauty, at the existential limits of biodiversity and climate. I am overwhelmed by the wonder and richness of nature, as well as by the reality of its destruction at the hands of (some) humans.

That ecological anxiety has a name –solastalgia. It’s melancholia or homesickness caused by separation from a loved home, even while you’re still there. It’s that feeling of loss from change to places and times you know and love.

The ‘great acceleration’ is the term for the massive, dramatic expansion of human technological advancement and environmental damage that’s occurred since the mid-twentieth century. In a few generations, humans have ‘conquered’ the far reaches of the earth and sea, reducing teeming species to a few fragments. Wildlife is now only an estimated 4.2% of the world’s biomass – the rest is humans and farmed animals. Scientists say the world has never seen change at the scale and rate of the great acceleration, and never will again – Earth just can’t sustain it. Every year, Earth Overshoot Day shows how many resources each country uses beyond the planet’s carrying capacity. For New Zealand, this year it’s April 19. After that we are living beyond our means. Technology got us into this mess but can technology save us? Some people pin their hopes on techno-fixes, from methane inhibitors to prevent climate change emissions from cow burps to space colonies. But we don’t have much time, tech fixes are magic bullets which are no substitute for stopping the damage now. Some people pray to God to save us from ourselves. Some say the rapid recent rise of artificial intelligence could be our saviour. Some say, de-growth and vegan anarchism (home and community gardens) are the key to a smaller human footprint. We can’t use the same system that caused this mess to get us out of it. But there’s no blueprint for the future. It’s up to us to imagine and devise. So when I am in my kayak, I’ll try to imagine a better future pathway, to appreciate the beauty, and not to cry.

Increased effort to boost Gulf mussel numbers in local waters

The latest stage in an ongoing project to restore and replenish severely depleted mussel/ kūtai beds throughout the Hauraki Gulf is being pursued by reef restoration trust Revive Our Gulf (ROG).

Working in collaboration with Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust and Ngāti

Whātua Orakei, ROG has already deployed 370 tonnes of kūtai in two experimental projects around the Gulf, including a major drop of 150 tonnes in the waters off Mahurangi Harbour over Matariki last year.

The mussel reef restoration group has now teamed up with Kelly Tarlton’s Marine Wildlife Trust and the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Auckland to learn more about baby mussels and why they’re not settling in significant numbers in local waters.

ROG executive director Katina Conomos says it remains a scientific mystery why kūtai numbers haven’t come back naturally after being almost wiped out last century, despite all the mussel farms dotted around the Gulf, but says it could have something to do with the very young mussels, known as spat.

“We know there are mussel spat in the Hauraki Gulf, but it seems that generally, they won’t settle in significant numbers and if they don’t settle down and start a community, there are no mussel reefs,” she says. “Understanding their reluctance to put down roots, and grow into kutai, is a vital part of the restoration puzzle.”

Conomos says seaweed is one of the surfaces spat latch onto, so over the next few months researchers will try to find out if there’s a particular type of seaweed that might entice spat to start new communities on the ocean floor.

“We have iwi and scientists, conservationists and volunteers working hard to try and figure out how we can do this at scale,” she says. “What’s obvious is that we need to enable nature to get in behind our efforts, to bring back the mauri, the essence of this magical stretch of water.

“If we find out the sort of home they prefer, then we can build them a place to stay, taking us one step closer to re-musseling Tīkapa Moana.”

Tens of thousands of spat have brought in for the research, via chilly-bin, from a commercial hatchery in Nelson to the Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium in Auckland. Mussel reefs once covered more than 600 square kilometres of the Hauraki Gulf seabed, but were destroyed by a boom-andbust commercial dredging industry. The reefs never came back after their demise, partly due to sediment flowing off the land and into the gulf.

“Right now, the bottom of the Gulf in large parts is a sludgy, gloopy mess of mud and sediment,” Conomos says. “Ask any diver.”

Watercare sinking test bores at Wayby

Building work is due to start shortly on the construction of three new bores to monitor groundwater south of Wellsford. Watercare is sinking the new test bores at varying depths near its groundwater production bore at 411 Wayby Valley Road.

Watercare senior resource consent planner

Paul Futter said drilling work was due to start by the end of April or early May, with monitoring and aquifer testing set to continue until the end of June.

The project is part of a $1 billion plan to upgrade water and wastewater infrastructure for the northern parts of Auckland over the next 10 years.

“We are currently testing the new groundwater source. This work involves drilling three different observation bores along Wayby Valley Road,” Futter said. “The observation bores will be used to monitor potential impacts.”

He said the testing was to ensure there was enough water to meet the growing demands of the Wellsford community for the next 50 years, providing essential data on the condition of the aquifer. It would also be used to verify that the production bore is developed properly and producing an acceptable yield to be used as a water source in future.

The construction and drilling works are due to take place between 7.30am and 6pm on weekdays and they are not expected to impact local residents’ water or wastewater.

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