Te Arai Regional Park plan discussions start
The public will finally get to say how land at beautiful Te Arai will be developed and managed in the future as part of the expanded Te Arai Regional Park.
Auckland Council’s Environment and Community Committee will open public submissions in November, closing in late January.
Te Arai is a popular surfing spot and home to some of our rarest shorebirds including the critically endangered fairy tern, with just 45 birds left.
Council agreed to 217 hectares of land to being vested in Council and incorporated into the existing 78ha regional park as part of the northern development.
A similar agreement in the south will see another 180ha also go to the park.
The northern land was vested two years ago but no management plan is in place. Local groups are concerned work is still being done by developer Te Arai North (TANL).
While TANL were initially told to remove a weir they’d constructed across Te Arai stream and rock from modified stream edges, Council is now considering a retrospective resource consent for the work from them.
Concerned locals and Auckland Council bio-diversity staff, say the weir interferes with the progress of native fish into Slipper Lake and Spectacle Lake, along with spawning of whitebait species on its banks. The dune lakes connect to the stream with young fish in Slipper Lake especially an important food source for fairy terns.
Save Te Arai spokesman Aaron McConchie, Heather Rogan with the New Zealand Fairy Tern Charitable Trust and Rodney Local Board member Colin Smith turned up at the Environment and Community Committee meeting on October 17 to argue the weir issue needed to
‘‘Auckland Council needs to remove that dam or I will step in and have it removed’’
Colin Smith
be looked at urgently. The management plan process, could take eight months.
Water backing up behind the weir was also causing drainage issues for neighbouring farms, Smith said. It would take just a day to remove it, he told the committee.
Rodney Councillor Greg Sayers will now meet with Ian Smallburn, Council’s manager of resource consent, and the Rodney Local Board to try and resolve the weir matter with urgency.