Spit land plan ‘going too far’

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 6

Spit land plan ‘going too far’

South Brighton Spit property owners said yesterday that the Christchurch . City Council was going too far in its proposed Residential Coastal zone attempt to contain foreshore erosion. Most said that the Council already had ways to control building in the dunes area south-east of Tern Street without making all land uses conditional, and. subject to public hearings. One said that the' council should be spending money on erosion control measures along the foredunes. But the North Canterbury Catchment Board and . Ministry of Works and . De.velopment said that the council was not going as far enough with its zoning proposal to guard against erosion. To protect property rights of compensation and appeal, they said, land unsuitable for building should be designated as a reserve. . Dr R. M. Kirk, senior lecturer in geography at the University of Canterbury and a coastal erosion expert, said that permitting continued development Of the Spit’s tip would be to increase knowingly the erosion hazard. - The Catchment Board has recommended a ban on further house building at least

on land between the sea’s mean high water mark and a line parallel to Rockinghorse Road, and 100 metres east of it. A shoreline and sand dune consultant’s report commissioned by the council in 1978, and done substantially by Dr Kirk, recommended several actions for that Ikm stretch of the foreshore along the spit tip. They included the forming of a buffer zone where natural sand movements could occur, and the avoidance of structural solutions — such, as a sea wall — to erosion, since a substantial foredune was the best and cheapest defence against sea encroachments. Land uses and activities within the buffer zone should be limited, the report said, and there should be an active programme of sand conservation. A series of storms and high seas in' 1977 and 1978, which brought the sea close to three houses built at the edge of the foredune system, highlighted the need for building hazards to be recognised in the district scheme. It was decided by planners that the operative residential zone was inappropriate for the • land south-east of Tern Street.

A 1979 Local Government Act amendment directed councils to refuse building permits for properties subject to erosion of sea inundation, although a new amendment allows some flexibility to local bodies in the issuing of permits. The prosposed Residential Coastal zone allowed suitable housing sites to be built upon proper planning controls, said the Assistant City planner (Mr J. G. Dryden). The proposed district scheme variation lacked certainty, and such certainty was one of the most important criteria of any planning scheme, said Mr 0. T. Alpers, representing one of the spit property owners, the 0. G. Clifford Estate. “In the normal 50-year life-span of a dwelling in such a position, it is just as likely that the foreshore will be built up as it is to be eroded/’ Mr Alpers said. The zone boundary took in far too much land. “A zone in which all uses are conditional is a town planner’s dream,” he said. “He doesn’t have to devise a set of ordinances, and can look at. each application individually.” A consulting engineer for the Clifford Estate. Mr W. R. Lewis, said that the rezoning

“appears to be a crude way of protecting people from wasting money, and a crude way of slowing the effects of natural erosion and landscape change.” It was possible to design houses that would remain stable even after severe erosion. But South Brighton shoreline fluctuations would “continue with little respect for man’s attempts to stabilise the shoreline, or for structures he may have constructed on the dunes,” said Mr R. W. Cathcart, the Catchment Board’s chief soil conservator. From Dr Kirk’s report and his own observations, he considered the area unsuitable for urban use because of the periodic erosion threat. Structures near the beach would be at risk, and their presence could accelerate the rate of erosion on nearby properties. Sea walls could also exaggerate erosion problems on neighbouring properties. Land excluded from development by a special designation could be managed as part of a recreation zone, Mr Cathcart said. Experience had shown that avoiding development in hazardous areas was preferable to building protection works

in most cases, said Mr B. A. McMillan, the principal engineering officer in Christchurch for the Water and Soil Division of the Ministry of Works and Development. Protection works often aggravated the problem, he said. Since 1971, the protection of urban development on land subject to coastal erosion had not been eligible for Government grant assistance. “I believe that areas of land on the South Brighton Spit have a permanent limitation for urban development, and the future development of these areas would be extremely unwise,” Mr McMillan said. Mr A. Hearn, representing the Southshore Ratepayers’ Association and several individuals, said that there was no point in the council placing a special zone over the erosion-prone area when it already had powers to control building under the Local Government Act. A registered valuer, Mr E. E. Harris, said that the zone would “generally downgrade the whole area because people going down there don’t know what they can do with their properties."