Nearly two years after the celebratory Community Board meeting (see the post of 15 March 2017) in the Waikanae Boating Club of the issue of the booklet Our future Waikanae Beach: community vision and action plan comes this draft of the Proposed District Plan affecting some of the beach area (shaded in mid-green in the map above) to incorporate the aspirations expressed over 2016-2017, which in essence were to keep the area quiet, relaxed and devoid of McMansions, apartment blocks and commercialisation.

We’re told that after the meeting in March 2017 when all the work had been done by the residents association, but with vague answers given at the meeting by the former Group Manager to questions, consultants were brought in to confirm what the residents had come with at a cost of $60,000.  Well, that’s the council’s way.

Things don’t happen fast in local government and in fairness to Emily Thomson, she will have been inundated with planning applications from property developers wanting to create subdivisons and building permit applications in the past couple of years.

The significance of ‘Notification’ under the Resource Management Act is that the public gets its chance to criticize and object to what is proposed.  We think that should also have happened at least with the massive Maypole company development, but better late than never for this to start happening in the District.