Councils and iwi working on a new district plan for the West Coast have been warned they can't get away from dealing with the thorny question of SNAs and protecting indigenous biodiversity.
Photo: 123RF
Members of the Te Tai o Poutini plan committee agonised over the issue for more than an hour at their meeting on Monday, trying to find ways to avoid slapping the 'significant natural area' label on private land.
A majority of the committee sees the process as an attack on private property rights.
Last month the committee refused, by a narrow majority, to accept a desktop study it had commissioned, mapping SNAs across the region.
It also postponed any further work on SNAs until the government finalises its national policy statement on indigenous biodiversity which will set the SNA rules in concrete.
But the planning team charged with writing the new district plan says there is no guarantee the national policy statement will be out before the new draft plan is due to go out for public consultation.
Whatever its position on SNAs, the committee would need policies, objectives and rules in the draft plan to protect ecosystems and indigenous biodiversity, principal planner Lois Easton said.
"It is absolutely critical to have some rules in there ... it would be unfair to landholders and the community if there is no indication of the provisions we will have ..."
No special treatment for West Coast
It was not known how different the final version of the national policy statement might be from the draft, but government officials had ruled out any "carve out" or exceptions for the West Coast.
"Your current district plans all have (biodiversity) provisions now; in the case of Westland there are quite restrictive rules already about vegetation clearance ..."
Existing plans also defined 'significant' and the committee would be wasting its time trying to put out a new plan without such rules, Easton said.
"So what we have tried to do is take the good things that have worked well in Westland and Buller and pulled them into the draft provisions that also reflect the (West Coast) Regional Policy Statement, which has a lot of strong objectives and policies about this."
Like everything else in the plan, those policies would restrict what landowners could do on their properties, Easton said.
"So it's very important to look at the rules framework and what permitted activities might be possible and things that might be controlled or discretionary, but it is a topic that we can't get away from having to deal with."
Warning for regional council
West Coast Regional Council chairman Allan Birchfield asked why the national parks on the Coast could not just be marked off as significant or outstanding areas and the private land left alone.
Easton said that idea had been "exceedingly well traversed in the courts" on many occasions.
"As we have always said, it is best that this committee makes rules the West Coast can live with, rather than the High Court or Environment Court. Because if you do not provide measures to protect biodiversity on private land, that is where you will end up. And I can say with extreme confidence, you will lose."
The West Coast Regional Council was the only one to oppose the government's biodiversity policy, and of the 7000 public submissions, 6575 had come from Forest and Bird.
The planners had originally hoped that mapping SNAs would mean there would be no need for rules on private land outside those areas.
But the mapping exercise had identified so many on the Coast they had had to think again.
Grey councillor Anton Becker said he had spoken to several Grey Valley landowners who reluctantly accepted that they had areas of bush on their farms that could be fenced off.
"I've got 25 percent of my farm on it (SNA map) but I can see bits I would never develop, white pine stands (kahikatea) they are wet areas, not economic, but they can't just take them for nothing - there's got to be some compensation, and fencing costs."
One option might be to identify SNAs in the plan but only by consent of the landowner, Cr Becker suggested.
Cr Birchfield said his council's attempt to limit wetland designations had ended up with 5000ha of private land being "taken" (listed on council schedules).
"You are not allowed to do anything with it ... it's gone … and the ratepayers have to pay to police it, at their cost."
Westland councillor Latham Martin said it was clear the committee wanted the rules to be as enabling as possible for landowners, and protective of their rights, but councils had to be prepared for the legal challenge that would inevitably come their way.
Easton said the planners now had a clear view of the committee's views and would try hard to reflect them in the draft policies.
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