Laura Franklin
Editor, Northern Advocate
29.11.2006

The spinmeisters of Landco let slip their plans for the Ngunguru Sandspit a little earlier than they intended to yesterday when their latest newsletter was briefly posted on their website.

It revealed that - right in line with the Northern Advocate's earlier reports - a residential development of 350 buildings is proposed for the southern end of the sandspit.

The information, complete with diagrams of the planned subdivision, was quickly taken down - but opponents of the development will no doubt be flocking to view exactly what they're up against in a public display at the Ngunguru Memorial Hall from tomorrow at 10am.

We can expect the reaction to be fierce.

And rightly so. Ngunguru Sandspit ticks all the boxes for an environment worthy of preservation: It is ecologically unique and is home to threatened native species; the Department of Conservation recognizes it as an important biological and cultural area; it contains wahi tapu sites - Maori burial grounds and a sacred mountain - recognized by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust; in council land-management speak, it is defined as a "visual amenity" and an "outstanding natural feature"; it is a coastal and flood hazard zone; it acts as a safety barrier for Ngunguru from extreme weather conditions, and has been breached by storms within recent history.

For all of these reasons and more, this land should be a Crown-owned national reserve. Instead it is privately owned by mega-developer Landco - a company that has tens of thousands of hectares of farm, vineyard and housing land around the country, and is working on creating new instant suburbs at Mt Wellington quarry, at Albany and at Auckland's Long Bay.

It's a big player, adept at "damage control" as evidenced by its newsletters advising local residents of its Ngunguru plans in the most glowing, friendly and innocuous of terms.

Landco has also been involved in behind-the-scenes talks to seek support from local Maori, offering - as revealed by the Advocate - to help build a marae, put in roading on hapu land, set up an educational facility and assist with Treaty of Waitangi and Maori Fisheries claims.

The fact that the sandspit is in the hands of a private interest such as this is testament to failings by Government and local authorities over many years.

Right now, this iconic and vulnerable Northland asset is zoned "Coastal Countryside Living" - which would allow subdivision into lifestyle blocks.

And yet, earlier this year, during discussions on Whangarei District Council's Long Term Council Community Plan, councillors resolved to "use District Plan measures to maximize protection of the Ngunguru Sandspit area".

It seems almost too little, too late.

Should we have faith that once an application is lodged, the council will be vigorous in considering the many opposing views and ensuring that a potentially unsafe and inappropriate residential subdivision gets no further than the drawing board?

SOS for Ngunguru Sandspit

Forest & Bird media release for immediate use
30 November 2006 - Whangarei
Contact: Beverley Woods, Forest & Bird Northern Branch Secretary, 09 436 0932

Ngunguru Sandspit must be saved from the destruction that a proposed housing development would inevitably wreak on this precious environment, Forest & Bird says.

Landco proposes to build a "coastal village" of 350 houses on 36 hectares of the 80-hectare sandspit north of Whangarei that would see about 1000 people living in this fragile natural environment.

Forest & Bird Northern Branch Secretary Beverley Woods says a housing development of anything near that size would have detrimental impact on such a vulnerable environment.

"Landco want us to believe that its development will include measures that will mitigate the environmental impact, but no amount of 'mitigation' will change the fact that a large-scale residential development is totally inappropriate in a virtually untouched natural wilderness," Beverley Woods says.

The visual effects of a large housing development on the unspoilt beauty of the area would be significant, and the presence of 1000 people poses a serious risk to vulnerable populations of rare shore birds on the spit, she says.

Forest & Bird is issuing an SOS - Save our Sandspit - to the local community, asking people to go along to public meetings at Ngunguru Memorial Hall today, tomorrow and Saturday to let Landco know they are opposed to the development.

"Landco has said that feedback on the proposal has been mostly positive - we want to make it clear to Landco that the public wants to protect the precious community asset of the sandspit, and that means not letting this development go ahead."

The Department of Conservation has recognised Ngunguru Sandspit as an important biological and cultural site which is ecologically unique, is visited by up to 36 bird species (including 14 endangered species), has outstanding landscape and amenity values, and contains wahi tapu sites.