Te Arai Regional Park plan gets the go ahead

Friday, 27 October 2017

Endangered Fairy Tern feed on small fish in the Te Arai dune lakes

The public will finally get to say how land at beautiful Te Arai will be developed and managed in the future as part of Te Arai Regional Park.

Auckland Council's Environment and Community Committee have agreed to open discussion next month with public submissions closing in late January.

Te Arai point is a popular surfing spot.

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.

Auckland Council agree to 217 hectares of land to being vested in Council and incorporated into the existing 78ha regional park as part of the northern development.

Rodney Councillor Greg Sayers will be meeting council resource consent managers and the Rodney Local Board to resolve weir issues at Te Arai

There are developments underway along the Pakiri/Te Arai coastline.

* Top swimmable mark for region's lowest quality lake**

A similar agreement for development in the south will eventually see another 180ha also go the park.

But with no management plan two years after the northern land was vested, concerns were raised by several local groups including Save Te Arai, Fairy Tern Charitable Trust and Te Arai Beach Preservation Society as some work was still being done in the reserve by developer Te Arai North.

After initially being told to remove a weir across Te Arai stream and modify the edges of the stream with rock, Council is now considering a retrospective resource consent for it.

With the management plan process likely to take eight months, 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 be looked at with urgency, rather than as part of the plan process.

Group members, along with Auckland Council bio-diversity staff, say the weir interferes with the progress of native fish species into Spectacle Lake and Slipper Lake along with spawning of whitebait species on its banks. The two shallow dune lakes are connected to the stream with young fish in Slipper Lake especially an important food source for fairy terns, which only eat small fish.

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 said he will meet with Ian Smallburn, Council's manager of resource consent, and the Rodney Local Board to try and resolve the weir matter with urgency.