One person mentioned this during the campaign, stating that former Kapiti mayor Jenny Rowan had been a supporter of nude bathing.  It prompted Geoffrey to check what the official view was, and according to this article on stuff.co.nz:

“Nudity is allowed on beaches unless it is regarded as offensive.

“Councils can deem beaches clothing-optional after consultation if residents request it.”

The problem, of course, is that what might be inoffensive to one person is offensive to another.

Although morality is often seen as the reason for wearing swimsuits in public, the main reason is aesthetics — not many people look better with clothes off than on, and there are a lot of people you’d rather not look at.

However, there is no compelling reason for changing the present stance as stated above.

The Waikanae North development mentioned in Thursday’s post envisions 800 houses being built in the 70 hectares (700,000 sq metres) of farmland it bought in this area in 2006. The company has bulldozed some of the land, and as well as extending Parata Street, has put in place a road leading from David Street into it.

The company’s blurb states that it plans “a mix of houses, apartments, retirement accommodation, lifestyle blocks, a village square, shops and parks”.

In 2008, the Ministry of Education bought 3.2 hectares of the land for a proposed primary school and in 2010 Ryman Healthcare was understood to have paid $7 million for 7 hectares of it.

The development of Ryman’s $100 million Charles Fleming Retirement Village is now almost complete. Two years ago a plan was released, below, for 137 lots for sale to the public varying in size from 400 square metres to 1,400 square metres.

According to the company, a 2 hectare community domain is being developed although there is little evidence of it as yet.

The first stage of the company’s scheme was extending Parata St to provide access to Ryman’s retirement village and the school, and the second stage has been the extension of David St into the Ministry of Education’s land and providing infrastructure for the 12 hectare housing development.

The remaining 43 hectares owned by Waikanae North is zoned for further residential development, “including lifestyle blocks, shops, medium-density housing and a commercial centre.”

Although not the massive planned development of the Maypole company, 800 houses is still equal to about one sixth of the total existing houses in Waikanae and will certainly present more strains on the town’s capacity.

The company’s website

Just a pretty picture of the island and sand dunes, taken late last month, close to the intersection of Field Way and William Street.

A Whites Aviation view looking west towards Kapiti Island, with the Waikanae River obvious on the left.

One notes the Waikanae railway station has a goods siding and some sort of shed — when the railways were still in the ‘retail business’ and now long a thing of the past.

The aerial photo shows Parata Street running 1 block west of and parallel to the SH1, probably about 5 years ago before the massive residential development in the area that was paddocks.

Since then, Ryman has built their retirement village (and are still building it) and most of the rest of the area is being sold off as land sections, some already have houses on them.

What property businesses don’t care about, but local councils do, is the impact of this sort of growth on community infrastructure needs.

When the electric trains were extended from Paraparaumu to Waikanae in 2011, the provision for car parking at Waikanae station was totally inadequate and that remains the case, causing a lot of frustration for residents on the east side of the railway line and businesses on the west side.

It’s probable that a lot of the people in the new housing mentioned above drive to the station to take the train to Wellington, and the more houses that are built, the bigger that problem will become.

A new car park has been eyed on the land currently occupied by the Catholic Church (which will move elsewhere); we wonder why not also the land occupied by the former Waikanae branch of Mitre 10 which is to the right in this Google Streetview and has been closed for some time.  This is only three doors along from the Catholic Church.

The Streetview below shows the Mitre 10 site – with the button in the bottom right you can manipulate the view by clicking, to rotate the pictures and by clicking on the arrows on the bottom to move along the street.

Update – as can be seen in the Google streetview, a  new building is being constructed on the site of the Mitre 10 shop.

Hutt City Councillors resolved to oppose the Commission’s proposal on behalf of the community, at a meeting of the Council in December 2014.

Hutt City Council commissioned a survey in 2014 that shows 80 per cent of Hutt residents, and 75 per cent across the greater Wellington region, would prefer council boundaries remain unchanged.

Read the survey report [PDF 254 kb]

Hutt City Council objects to the proposal on two main points;

• a loss of local democracy and,
• high cost and high risk, with no evidence of gains.

The Local Government Commission is proceeding at a breakneck pace over its intentions, rather like an under-employed, self-serving lawyer eager to charge fees to a new client.

The Commission wants councils and the public to make submissions to it on its proposals on the Wellington ‘super-city’ by Monday 2 March, less than 3 weeks away, and then wants the ‘super-city’ in place by October next year, which is when the next general local body elections take place.  Just about everyone Geoffrey has spoken to is incredulous about this timetable.

The proposal should be rejected outright for the reasons given elsewhere.  For that reason, and personal experience with making time-consuming and unheeded submissions to government bureaucrats generally, I am not bothering to make a submission.  When the proposals are in their final form, we will campaign for a ‘no’ vote from voters.

This is a decades old debate.  Basically the fluoridation of water with soluble fluoride salts is considered to prevent tooth decay and thus tap water has been widely fluoridated in many countries.  The decision to do this in NZ is up to individual municipal councils.

However, fluoride salts are mildly toxic. For most people the very dilute existence of them in tap water isn’t going to cause them any problems, but everyone is different and there are some people who will be affected by it.  The scenario is the same as with the mercury that has traditionally been used in dental fillings: it won’t affect most people, but it does affect some people.

Fluoride can be removed by reverse osmosis filtration, but the systems are generally unaffordable for personal use.  Most bottled water as sold in stores won’t have added fluoride salts, but you have to pay for it.

If fluoride isn’t in water, you can get toothpastes which have it – and applying it directly to teeth is much more effective in achieving its dental benefit than by drinking it.

My view is simple: whether or not you consume fluoride should be a matter of your individual choice and should not be imposed on you.

The Kapiti Coast council should put the issue to a referendum with the next council elections, which are scheduled for October next year, but before that there is certain to be a referendum on the threatened ‘super-city’ which this could be included in.

We noticed this last weekend when we parked in the parking lot close to the Waimea café at the beach. The wall looks to be decades old and could easily be rendered and painted, with little cost.  The trash receptacle could do with a coat of paint too. These are further examples of things that could and should have been done some time ago.

We wonder in looking at the wall if there is any steel reinforcing in it as there seems to be a slight lean from the weight of the sand, but if it didn’t then it would probably have collapsed by now.

Below is an example of a similar low retaining wall in Oriental Bay, Wellington.  The marine wildlife graphics are in relief form.  Which wall looks better?

In his flyer, another by-election candidate states that Waikanae can become a destination of choice, although it’s not clear if he means for residents, visitors or both. He isn’t very specific about what would achieve this. “Martinborough did it with its wineries”. Well, yes, but these cover the surrounding countryside. As observed earlier, Waikanae Beach will be within a short drive of the Expressway when it is complete, but as asked in an earlier post, what would attract people to the main town area?  Those interested in hiking can go into the Hemi Matenga Nature Reserve in the nearest foothills of the Tararua range. This gives some good views on the crests, but with the steep paths, it won’t suit a lot of older people.  And that is pretty much it at present.

When speaking to different people about this, there have been a few suggestions, one being a casino in the town commercial centre.  Other suggestions, perhaps not very serious ones, were a gentlemen’s club and a bordello (there probably is one or two of the latter already, albeit hidden from obvious view).

The one thing that we don’t really want is a group of abandoned shops, and there are sure to be some post-Expressway opening.