Great Barrier Island issues and options

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Background

What is a district plan? | Why reveiw the district plan | The HGI District Plan | The HGI District Plan and Great Barrier Island | Land Units 1-10

What is a district plan?

The Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) requires the council to have a district plan for Auckland City. A district plan is a legal document, which sets out the council's policies and strategies for managing the natural and physical resources of the city.

The Auckland City District Plan is comprised of three sections:

• the Central Area section
• the Isthmus section and
• the Hauraki gulf Islands sections (HGI District Plan)

Why reveiw the district plan

Once a district plan is operative, the RMA requires it to be reviewed every ten years.

As the current HGI District Plan became operative in July 1996, the council is aiming to publicly notify the proposed (reviewed) plan in August 2006. 

Another key driver for reviewing the HGI plan is to ensure it meets the foreseeable needs of the environment and the communities for the ensuing ten years.

The HGI District Plan

The current HGI District Plan is a single document and brings together all the resource management issues facing the islands of the Hauraki Gulf: Waiheke, Great Barrier, Rakino, Pakatoa, Ponui, Motuihe, Motutapu, Rotoroa, Brown's and Rangitoto and a larger number if other smaller islands (the current plan applies to more than 65 islands overall).

The resource management method adopted for the current HGI District Plan has three primary elements:

Strategic Management Areas (SMA's)
There are 20 separate SMA's in the HGI plan. these are generally based on natural drainage catchments. Common objectives and policies have been developed for each SMA.

Land units - within each SMA
All land is given a land unit classification. the land unit classification relates to the natural characteristics of the particular land or the activities to be undertaken on that land. Each land unit has a set of objectives, policies and rules which determine the nature and extent of development that can occur in each land unit.

Policy areas
Policy areas are an additional layer of district plan provisions which contain objectives. policies and rules which have been put in place where a more developed and targeted planning approach is required eg wharf areas, commercial areas and beach areas subject to relatively heavy development pressure.

The HGI District Plan and Great Barrier Island

The resource management method explained above is applied to Great Barrier Island as shown in the diagram below

The current HGI District Plan contains 26 land units, however only land units 1-10 are applied to Great barrier Island, the other outer islands and eastern Waiheke.

Land units 1-10