Southland Water and Land Plan hearing Landowners say zoning is wrong
The accuracy of Environment Southland’s physiographic zoning of Southland properties has been further thrown into doubt, with numerous landowners saying the data is incorrect and should not be used.
Dan Minehan of Independent Forestry Services, who owns land at Greenhills, said the zoning of his land was ‘‘highly inaccurate’’.
‘‘We want someone to sort that out for a start. It’s as simple as that,’’ he said yesterday, during the final week of the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan hearing at Environment Southland headquarters in Invercargill.
Rob van Voorthuysen, the hearing panel chairman, told Minehan that numerous other submitters had also told the panel the zoning on their land was incorrect.
This was something the panel would be considering, he said.
Minehan, whose land is zoned Peat Wetlands, Gleyed and Bedrock/Hill country, said they were in low-lying country.
‘‘I would say our zoning is somewhere between 50 [and] 100 per cent out.’’
He understood what Environment Southland was trying to achieve, he said.
‘‘I get [Environment Southland] wants to get better water quality, but there needs to be better accuracy of the data.
‘‘There’s a bunch of rules being created but we need to start at an accurate level so we can play the game.’’
Environment Southland has divided Southland into nine physiographic zones, each representing areas of landscape with common attributes that influence water quality.
Two of the zones, called the Old Mataura Zone and the Peat Wetlands Zone, have proposed rules that place restrictions on new dairy conversions and have tighter intensive winter grazing requirements.
David Rose, Northope sheep and beef farmer and a member of the Federated Farmers executive, called for the physiographic zones and maps to be removed from the plan.
His submission says he opposes the use of physiographic zones in the plan because of the unavailability of a validation and testing report and no peer review document.
‘‘The use of them in the draft plan is effectively grandparenting of land use in some zones and is being done before the Southland economic study is available and before the catchment limit setting process, which is unacceptable.’’
The physiographic maps have not been ‘‘groundtruthed’’, he says.
His Northope river flat property was zoned Gleyed, which has characteristics of extensive artificial drainage but his river flat property did not have any artificial drainage at all, his submission says.
His property was also zoned Riverine, which had the characteristics of shallow stony soils.
‘‘This too does not make sense as I know I have very little gravel exposed on my property when I plough, even in my berm paddocks close to the river.’’
Earlier in the hearing, another submitter, Beef & Lamb, called for the removal of all nine physiographic maps from the proposed plan, saying most sheep and beef farmers believed their properties were incorrectly classified in the maps.
Beef & Lamb supported using the physiographic zones if they could be fairly amended with minimal cost to landowners and without requiring a plan change.
The hearing, which began in June, concludes on Thursday.