Long Bay - Okura Marine Reserve

As reported by Seafriends, the Long Bay - Okura Marine Reserve, was established by the NZ Government Department of Conservation in 1997. The reserve encompasses a sheltered rocky shore, estuary and beaches, has a total area of 9.8 sq. km, and extends for 0.5 km out to sea. All kinds of fishing and shellfishing are prohibited within the reserve. Within 10 years, the recovery of fish stocks was already apparent to fishing folk in adjacent waters.

Among all the marine reserves established so far in New Zealand, this is the nearest to a large urban area, so many people are able to see and enjoy the results of mariine conservation first-hand, at this location (map courtesy DOC website, 8th February, 2006).

The future success of the marine reserve will depend on:

(a) continued public support for not taking fish and shellfish from this small part of the North Shore coastline,
(b) keeping the reserve accessible to people as a recreational and educational resource, and
(c) protecting the reserve from polluted runoff, during and after urban construction activities.

See the DOC website here for an outline map, and here for full access details.

Access to and scenic appreciation of the marine reserve depend to a large extent on the presence of land trails (along a narrow strip of coastline) an a green hinterland. Appreciation (andd protection) of the seascape would undoubtedly increase if walking trails at different elevations and heights could be incorporated into a larger Long Bay - Okura Great Park.

Collision corner on the bend from hell

The following is a slightly revised version of a letter sent to a North Shore City Council member (16.10.05)

Regarding the Proposed Variation 66 and Plan Change 6 to NSC District Plan and Landco's "Refined Alternative Structure Plan".

I hope that the following brief comments can be somehow, somewhere noted.

A proposed new major road is shown branching off from Beach Road at the upper end of an accident-prone blind bend. This bend rises sharply from the city end of Long Bay beach, and at the lower end there is already a T-junction with Long Bay Drive.

The proposal looks like an engineering disaster to me. The new road would have to extend out from a high, steep bank of soft road fill, and would descend sharply into the valley of Awaruku Creek. The steep approaches to the new T-junction would require lights, with traffic stopping and starting with maximum braking effort and minimum fuel efficiency, leading to heavy localised exhaust emissions and noise.

A second set of lights would also be needed at the lower, existing T-junction, which has less of a problem with slope, though it is also dangerous because of its location on the blind bend, and because it is set at exactly the point where drivers always try to get up speed for the hill. This often causes uphill traffic to swing out close to the centre line, while downhill traffic tries to cut into the centre line - hence the many collisions and near collisions, and scenes of downhill vehicles swerving over the road bank.

Why is any road needed at all across the Awaruku Creek conservation area?

Why not bring the road down to the far (northern) side of the present bus depot, and make a land swap to compensate for the reserve area lost using this route? This would create a level junction, and with suitable plantings would be largely out of sight. It would also allow a longitudinal walkway and bike path to go up the Awaruku valley without being interrupted by the road.

The resulting new road might be slightly longer, but the engineering would be easier, safer, and cheaper, the local environmental impact would be less, and there would be cumulative fuel savings for the community as a whole. People might even use the buses more, if the new main road led directly to the nearby bus depot.

Perhaps an entirely different main route could service the new subdivision area (from around Long Bay College?).

A Rant for the Great Park

Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand (population almost one million), is growing rapidly, pushing north and south out of a narrow volcanic isthmus between the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Coastal property is prime estate, and in recent years, an epic struggle has been waged between property speculators and city residents for the preservation of open space in one of the largest undeveloped areas of coastline in the Auckland East Coast.

The Okura and Long Bay promintory lies alongside an undisturbed estuary of immense ecological value for the preservation and regeneration of marine life. The beaches along this promintory are among the most accessible and popular open spaces in Auckland region, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, on weekends and holidays, from all over the Auckland region.

The local city council (North Shore City), was previously dominated by members in favour of urban development above all else, but has gradually - over several years - changed and responded to local pressure to preserve the rural landscape. Unfortunately it is now constrained by the decisions of previous ruling councils, and faces huge costs when buying land because of a previous zoning as rural-future-residential (with minimal public consultation). Developers were allowed to assume that this meant a definite legal right to subdivide in the future, and profit from what had been rural land. Ideally such zoning would be neutral - conferring no legal expectation in either direction, whether future rural or future residential, but merely indicating that more than one possibility is being considered.

The Long Bay - Okura Great Park Society has been steadfastly fighting, through all possible legal channels, to creat a Great Park that will add hugely to the value of Auckland City as a place to live. Property developers other than those invested in the land itself stand to benefit just as much from this as the residents of Auckland City, and the many travellers who visit Auckland.

The Society has formed a Land Purchase Fund which at the moment is largely symbolic in value: it demonstrates the determination and long-term vision of the Society to help create a wonderful park for the Auckland region. The Fund itself has very little money, so far. All contributions are welcome, large and small. The hopes of this Society are largely directed towards persuading public authorities to invest in the Park as much as they can, using all possible means to raise funds for this purpose.

Is time against us, or for us? Whether or not the Park is entirely funded though public sources, the present author believes that by taking a very long-term view of the situation, it may be possible to buy land in the area of interest, piece by piece, regardless of how far the process of urbanisation has proceeded. Few modern houses are permanent structures, of the sort that might be expected to last for centuries. They are built, last a few generations, and then disappear again - if they have not acquired special historical significance, making their preservation desirable. Perhaps, by actively participating in the development, profits can be generated that are then invested in the creation of open space - over decades, half-centuries, and centuries. Time can be on our side, if we have the vision for it, and can transmit our aims across generations. Urban expansion is not necessarily uni-directional, forever increasing outwward and upward, across and over a landscape.

Many populations around the world are beginning to contract, for demographic reasons, and this may create new, as-yet-unimagined possibilities for what are now urban areas. Population decline is usually seen as a negative for economic and social development, but this is because we lack historical examples of how to manage decline in creative, economically beneficial ways.

The Auckland metropolis now is expanding not through natural increase but through social and political policies that encourage immigration, from cities and rural areas alsewhere in New Zealand, and from outside New Zealand. The metropolis has become an economic black hole for New Zealand, sucking in financial resources, and perhaps not giving as much in return, while cities and rural areas around the country have difficulty in attracting funds - public and private - to maintain or improve services, employment opportunities, and infrastructure.

Creating the Great Park is thus an effort that is linked to arguments about the feasability or desirability of setting limits to the growth of a city, in theory and in practice.

World map on a golden boulder, Long Bay

A world is at stake in the Great Park project. The Great Park is a pro-development project. It is pro-development on a larger geographical scale, on a longer time-scale, and for the benefit of more people, than anything imagined by the speculators seeking to enrich themselves and a few shareholders. Yes - houses need to be built - but they do not automatically have a priority over other possible land uses.

[See the 1999 essay posted on this weblog for a permacultural view of housing and the Park]