Group emphasises river protection
Conservation group Friends of the Maitai focused on the health and management of the river in their submission to an ongoing hearing into the potential development of residential housing in Kākā Valley.
Group member Steven Gray spoke on behalf of Friends of the Maitai to ask the commissioners to reject the private plan change request unless ‘‘strict, robust and measurable’’ provisions were in place for both the construction phase and the long-term management of the Kākā stream and the Maitai River it flows into.
‘‘While industrial forestry is the biggest threat, extending urban development upstream further threatens water quality and river ecology,’’ he said.
‘‘We seek assurance that if the development goes ahead it should maintain the amenity value of the Maitai River, improve the water quality in the river, ensure there is no impact of sediment and stormwater on river ecology and the associated habitat, [and] require future subdivisions within the private plan change be subject to the strictest resource consents.’’
Gray said one of the biggest problems with the plan change so far was a lack of information given on flood risk management, and on the prevention or management of sedimentation.
‘‘Changes to the floodplain, additional stormwater flows, and increased severe weather events means the flood risk downstream is inevitably greater; the plan change does not sufficiently address these issues and their potential impacts.’’
He said it was ‘‘difficult to have confidence’’ in both the Nelson City Council and the development team in terms of sediment management.
He said the council had recently ‘‘fail[ed] to protect Maire stream residents from developers inadequately protecting their waterway from construction erosion’’, and that the Bayview side of the development the proposed Kākā Valley suburb was connected to had had an incident of sedimentation.
‘‘When that development started, there were significant sediment flows that were noticed going into the Haven. This is the challenge in general for the council in these developments: typically a flow will happen, and it’s only after the fact that you see it, and notice it, and then people react to it.
‘‘I think in that case it resulted in some change of practice, which is a good thing, but the problem is that the flow did happen.’’
Gray said the applicants’ lack of detail on when river protection measures would be in place made it ‘‘impossible to have confidence that the developers know what they’re doing’’.
The hearing wrapped up yesterday.