The Whakatāne District Council has asked the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to reconsider the draft text in its Proposed Regional Coastal Plan to ensure that the development of a vital economic driver for the District is not impeded.
A delegation led by Mayor Tony Bonne, Councillor Russell Orr and Chief Executive Marty Grenfell met with Regional Council elected members in Rotorua last week to convey their “strong opposition” to the draft plan’s designation for Council-owned land at Bunyan Road.
“We received a very good hearing and the Regional Council representatives were clearly well aware of a recent Supreme Court ruling that avoidance of adverse effects means exactly what it says – that all adverse effects must be avoided. It’s pleasing that this subject will be discussed in more detail at a senior staff level before the proposed plan is adopted for community consultation,” Mayor Bonne says.
“Our concern was that as it stood, the original draft designated much of the area where our proposed integrated lifestyle development at Bunyan Road would take place as an area of significant indigenous biodiversity, where adverse effects must be avoided, not remedied or mitigated. If it was implemented as drafted, that could make it difficult, and potentially impossible, for the proposed retirement village, residential subdivision and marine precinct development to be undertaken.”
The delegation pointed out that the 40-hectare block of land in question, at 77 Bunyan Road in Piripai, has been zoned for residential development for more than three decades and has been through a successful resource consent process, which did not highlight any biodiversity issues which could not be mitigated by setting aside sensitive areas as reserves.
“This is the only area of suitably-zoned land available for a significant greenfields development of this kind in the Eastern Bay of Plenty,” Mr Bonne says. “This development is also a vital element of our economic development strategy, with a recent economic impact assessment indicating that it has the potential to contribute some $480 million to our economy over the 20-year construction phase and $62 million a year and more than 900 jobs once it is fully operational.
“We believe that the reserve areas built into the structure plan for the proposed development and the biodiversity provisions in our District Plan, in conjunction with Council’s other substantial coastal reserves, mean that avoiding, mitigating or remedying any biodiversity impacts is an achievable goal, and we will continue working with the Regional Council to have the nature of the biodiversity overlay at 77 Bunyan Road amended to reflect that.”