August 2025: Chairperson's Report

• August board business meeting: Chair's report

• August board business meeting key reports to note: intensification, Orewa Reserve, full facilities contract, Local Government System Amendments Improvement Bill.

• Remembering the devastation: 2023 Storm Recovery interviews

• Waiwera and Hatfields Beach Watercare update

• Parks and Community Facilities: July work

• Coastal cameras

  
  
  
  

August board business meeting: Chair's report

The following is a copy of my Chair's report I write for our monthly business meetings (this one being from 26 August).

Purpose of the report 

1. To receive the chairperson’s update on recent activities of the chairperson, itemised by outcomes in the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board Plan 2023.

Executive summary

2. Items noted in this report are intended to be key highlights, not a full overview of all activity.

Our People

3. On 29 July I attended a meeting with Te Herenga Waka o Ōrewa marae with members Law, Walden and Deputy Chair Brown. We also had with us our Local Board Advisor and new Engagement Advisor who was warmly welcomed to the marae. We discussed a range of projects in our work programme, our recent successful meeting with Auckland Prison to help deliver native plants and park furniture in the future and also talked about the upcoming Local Board Plan that will be developed and consulted on at the end of 2025 and early 2026. We discussed a few different ways we might look to engage with mana whenua, one of which could be an event at the marae, which they were keen to do. We will also reach out to relevant iwi too about a specific engagement event. This is all part of our Engagement Plan which has several specific groups that we have identified that we need to hear more from and engage better with, which our engagement advisor will be looking to do for the upcoming Local Board Plan.

4. I was invited to Northcross Intermediate on 31 July to speak to 17 classes. Students are undertaking a fascinating topic this term called “The Quarter-Acre Dream” about population growth and housing intensification in their local area and will be completing a project to redesign a communal community space. I spoke at length about positive and negative consequences of housing intensification covering social, community, recreation, travel, environment and more.

   
   

5. On 4 August I was a guest judge for the Campbells Bay School Year 6 speech competition that centered on the theme ‘whenua’ (the land). The students took a range of different perspectives on the theme, and one will be off to compete in an inter-school competition.

   
   

6. On 9 August I attended the East Coast Bays Volunteer Fire Brigade fundraiser quiz at the Bays Club in Browns Bay. The place was packed out with supporters, and they raised $6,000 on the night towards upgrading their brigade patrol vehicle. Around 12,000 firefighters in NZ are unpaid volunteers, which equates to about 80% of the fire service. These volunteers are crucial to NZ’s emergency response system, which would collapse without these incredible people.

Our Community

7. On 19 July, member Parfitt and I attended the book launch of ‘Dacre Cottage and the Weiti Block: their history and preservation’ by Felicity Goodyear-Smith. It was held at Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre (MERC) and sponsored by Canoe and Kayak (whose owners head the Dacre Cottage Committee). It was a great turnout from the community, especially those who have played, or still play, ac active role in the preservation and upkeep of Dacre Cottage.

   
   

8. I attended the Okura Residents and Ratepayers Association Annual General Meeting on 3 August and gave a brief update on Vaughans Road. Hall bookings have been increasing, and the committee will be working on improving that further too.

   
   

9. I attended the Friends of Okura Bush (FoOB) Annual General Meeting on 17 August. The FoOB team are continuing on with their important pest animal and plant control work in and around the Okura Bush and neighbouring suburbs. The Community Ranger from Department of Conservation (DoC) provided an update that funding has been secured to partially reopen the walking track from Haigh Access Road. It will likely stop at the section where the main 2023 slip was near the sandspit and whilst planning and consultation work is still to come; the required work could be completed in 2027. I have requested a catch-up meeting with DoC.

   
   

10. On 29 July members Law, Walden and Brown, and two of our staff members attended another hui at Te Herenga Waka o Ōrewa Marae. It was great to catch up and talk about our upcoming Local Board Plan development and Work Programme 2025/2026, and hear updates on their completion

    
    

11. On 17 August the submission I wrote on behalf of the local board to the Online Casino Gambling Bill, was sent to Parliament’s Governance and Administration Committee, via our Urgent Decision making process (a copy of which is recorded in the 26 August 2025 Hibiscus and Bays Local Board business meeting agenda).

    
    

Our Environment

12. On 18 July Deputy Chairperson Brown and I, along with Commissioner David Hill, were on the Panel for the Mairangi Bay Reserve Management Plan Hearing. The hearing process formally closed after panel deliberations on 1 August and a report, with the Panel’s recommendations to the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board for decision-making, has been completed.

    
    

13. On 25 July I helped a fantastic Murrays Bay Intermediate School class who were completing some dune planting with rangers at Long Bay Regional Park. This comes after substantial community planting days where hundreds of spinifex grasses have been planted. The grasses trap wind blown sands to make the coastal dune more resilient to storm surges and coastal inundation. They also provide a habitat for dotterel and oystercatchers.

    
    

14. I have been alerted, by a local bird rescue organisation, to an ongoing issue (occurring every 4-6 weeks apparently) of suspected bird poisonings in the Browns Bay Village Green. Our Parks and Community Facilities team have been regularly checking the area, and I have been seeking further information about the benefits and risks of alpha chloralose becoming a controlled substance. This may be something that the local board could pick up as advocacy work. I will share further information with the board as it comes to hand.

August board business meeting key reports to note

Our August Business Meeting was held on 26 August 2025.

• Agenda

• Addendum agenda (item 22 re housing intensification)

• Minutes

Auckland Unitary Plan – Local board views on the withdrawal in part of Proposed Plan Change 78 - Intensification and draft replacement plan change

This is the feedback I wrote on the government directive to upzone and intensify more of Auckland, including Mairangi Bay, Browns Bay and the Hibiscus Coast. It passed unanimously.

That the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board:

a) provide the following feedback to the Governing Body (via the Policy and Planning Committee) on the Auckland Unitary Plan: Withdrawal in part of Proposed Plan Change 78 – intensification and draft replacement plan change:

i) do not support any upzoning in intensification anywhere on the Hibiscus Coast subdivision of the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board area noting:

A) up-zoning is entirely inappropriate in the current environment where no new developments can connect to the wastewater system due to the Watercare Army Bay wastewater pump station being near capacity and awaiting a renewal

B) any up-zoning, even where development is not actually realisable like this specific situation, will still result in valuations increasing in the next assessment – meaning residents in the up-zoned areas proposed will be paying more in rates for gains that are not able to be realised, which is unduly unfair

C) the plan change proposal for the Hibiscus Coast would result in 5,500 Single House Zone dwellings moving to Mixed Housing Suburban Zone; 6925 Single House Zone dwellings moving to Mixed Housing Urban Zone; and 766 Mixed Housing Suburban Zone dwellings moving to Mixed Housing Urban Zone

D) a more appropriate step forward would be for explicit staging triggers (e.g. network capacity thresholds, project milestones) before any zoning upgrades take effect in these extremely constrained catchments

ii) do not support any upzoning in intensification in Browns Bay or Mairangi Bay (Mixed Housing Urban Zone to Residential – Terrace Housing and Apartment Buildings Zone (THAB) noting that:

A) further intensification areas, as proposed, immediately surround these two low-lying coastal town centres that were devastated in the 2023 Auckland Anniversary floods (which would have been a greater disaster had it been high tide)

B) further intensification presents an unacceptable risk to life and increased infrastructure damage in such a flooding event, by intensifying in areas that would reduce saturation and block flow paths

C) neither of these small coastal towns have direct or rapid transport to central Auckland and instead have ‘feeder buses’ to transport hubs, which we would argue doesn’t meet the standard required for THAB zoning

D) steep gullies, discontinuous and poor paths for all-abilities, and constrained corridors reduce practical walkability to the town centres' amenities and transport for some of the proposed THAB zones

E) at least one of the proposed THAB zones in Mairangi Bay is within a flood zone which we find entirely inappropriate, even with planning overlays

iii) note that the coastal settlements noted above (Ōrewa, Whangaparāoa, Browns Bay and Mairangi Bay) are contending with active erosion and coastal hazard management. Enabling more height and density in hazard-prone coastal fringes is inconsistent with risk-reduction and adaptation objectives

iv) the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board areas have seen housing growth outpacing local employment growth. Up-zoning without a commensurate jobs/transport strategy (including committed corridor capacity) risks longer commutes and greater congestion on already stressed corridors

b) tuhi tīpoka / note that the local board only received the updated draft replacement plan change planning maps for our local board area at 7:30pm the evening before this 26 August 2025 business meeting

c) tuhi tīpoka / note, for the public record, that the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) is the government policy setting that directs councils to remove ‘restrictive’ planning rules and plan for growth, both up and out. The Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP) guides land development based on this policy setting and Plan Change 78 is Auckland Council’s intensification planning instrument to update the AUP as per updates to the NPS-UD. Whilst intensification is not the desire of this local board, the direction comes from government via the NPS-UD.

Current zoning vs proposed zoning

Here are relevant zoning map images to help visualize what's happening (current zoning vs proposed).

Check out high-quality maps (scroll down to your local board area) Map 1 shows the zones, and map 2 shows any hazard qualifying matters: Draft Replacement Plan Change

Key

Orewa

Mixed housing suburban (yellow) is prominent with also more mixed housing urban zone. Intensification is removed off the low lying coastline surrounding the town centre.

Whangaparaoa Peninsula

Despite chronic infrastructure limitations, the peninsula is upzoned significantly from a single-house zone to medium-density standards (i.e. 3 unit developments 3 storeys)

Browns Bay

Remaining single house zoning moves to the '3 houses 3 storeys' type zoning and more areas around the town centre move to the densest residential zoning available, allowing for terrace housing and apartments (THAB) typically ranging from five to seven storeys.

Mairangi Bay

Mixed housing Suburban moves to mixed housing urban zoning and the terraced housing and apartment zones spread out from the village.

Where to Find Official Zoning Maps

If you're looking for up-to-date, official, and interactive maps, here's where to go:

• Auckland Unitary Plan Zoning (current)

• Plan Change 78 Map Viewer (for Intensification Zones)

Local board input into Auckland Council’s submission on the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill

The following is the feedback I wrote for the local board:

a) provide the following input to be appended to Auckland Council’s submission on the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill (Bill):

i) note the intent of the Bill to reduce compliance costs through making small changes to requirements on councils that result in efficiency gains and financial savings

ii) note that the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) didn’t have time to properly investigate the benefits/risks/costs or other options

iii) oppose the proposed removal of the ‘four well-beings’ (social, economic, environmental, and cultural) from the statutory purpose of local government and request that they be retained alongside the focus on core services

iv) note the previous Auckland Council submissions to Local Government Act proposed amendments (2012, 2019), which support the retention of the ‘four well-beings’

v) note the lack of supporting information in the RIS of benefits and risks to the proposal to remove the requirement to undertake reviews of the costeffectiveness of service delivery arrangements at specific times

vi) support the proposed measures to improve transparency, including: A) mandatory disclosure of consultant and contractor expenditure B) standardised financial performance measures, and C) public reporting of council performance in a format that is accessible to local communities

vii) support the proposal to allow Auckland Council’s chief executives to delegate authority for signing certificates of legislative compliance

viii) support extending the maximum length of a chief executive’s second term from two to five years

ix) support the proposal to modernise public notice requirements so councils are not required solely to publish public notices in daily newspapers

x) support the removal of the requirement to consider Tikanga Māori knowledge in CCO director appointments, noting that some specialised roles are sometimes sought internationally (e.g. CE of Watercare), and recommend that the Bill is altered so instead of it being a requirement for appointments that the knowledge can instead be fulfilled by organisational education support

xi) note that if the intent of the Bill is to keep councils to ‘basic functions of local government’ in order to keep rates down, then the services councils have found they have had to pick up over recent decades given community pressure, would therefore need to be handed back to central government (e.g. homelessness support, crime prevention, environmental restoration)

xii) recommend that if central government wish to support councils to undertake the ‘basic functions of local government’ and keep rates down, there are a range of legislative levers that can be used to make substantial differences outside of this Bill (e.g. infringement regimes for bylaws under the Local Government Act 2002 so we can enforce our bylaws with fines and self-fund compliance efforts, or enable a bed-night visitor levy).

Ōrewa Reserve - public consultation and costings update

Here's the feedback I wrote with some clarification amendments by members (passed unanimously):

a) receive the report providing the results of public consultation on four concept designs and high-level costings, relating to the Ōrewa Reserve Future Management Project

i) note that this is a report to receive information only, and not a decision-making report

ii) note, and thank, the 562 submitters (individual and organisations) who responded to the consultation

iii) note that 61 per cent of responders split their preferences across the four options, with A, B and C receiving similar levels of support; and 37 per cent of respondents chose 'other' – some of whom provided comments indicating preference for a seawall to be constructed

iv) note the Project Working Group’s preference for option C

v) request that further information (utilising external subject matter experts) is provided to the local board that investigates the viability of a range of hard coastal structures noted in the submissions, including status quo

vi) request that this project is paused until information relating to (v) is clarified and any further actions is at the approval of the local board.

Te Ara Hura 2027 - Parks and Community Facilities maintenance contracts programme local board feedback report

This contract, our Parks and Community Facilities maintenance contract (for our area, this is Ventia), makes up 60% of our local board budget. That is HUGE. The disturbing part, though, is that we have little control over the contract as it was set and negotiated by the Governing Body- yet we pay for it. This is the biggest and most significant local spend we have and should be of high priority to our local board and our 8 members.

A few months ago, I hosted a meeting with North Shore local boards (four of us together) to talk about common themes we could work together on to achieve in a new contract (specific service levels that are more affordable).

Members were also asked, via email earlier this year, to provide written feedback to the project team on a variety of areas where we felt the contract should be doing less, the same, or more as well as including additional information explaining the issues. It blows my mind that for a 60% spend of our budget, and services that are so important to our residents, only THREE of eight members on our board bothered to do it (myself, Julia Parfitt and Gregg Walden).

This was another opportunity for us to signal areas of importance to us (written by me, and passed unanimously):

a) tuku / provide the following views on the Te Ara Hura / The Way Forward 2027 Parks and Community Facility maintenance contracts programme, including:

i) refer to the feedback (submitted forms) already provided and still relevant from Chair Poppelbaum, Member Parfitt and Member Walden in March-April 2025

ii) strategic focus areas to ‘do more’ include:

A) overall service levels

B) local suppliers of subcontractors

C) community partnerships

i) service areas to ‘do more’ include:

A) open space cleaning

B) playground and recreational equipment

C) tracks and paths

D) park furniture and structures

E) town centres and streetscape

b) tuhi tīpoka / note that the Full Facilities Contract is a 60 percent spend of the local board’s budget and new contracts should be of critical importance for a future local board to review.

c) tuhi tīpoka / note that the local board is interested in working closely with neighbouring local boards, and community stakeholders (e.g Men's Sheds and Auckland Prison) in order to achieve higher standards of service and cost-savings.

Remembering the devastation: 2023 Storm Recovery interviews

A hard watch, but an important one. Check out these interviews retelling the devastation and community support during the 2023 Auckland Anniversary floods:

• Macolm and Christine Mitchell (previous owners of Take Note, Mairangi Bay)

• Kim Wyatt (Murrays Bay resident and former local shop owner)

• Ben Sheeran (Rothesay Bay resident and Bays Work in Progress)

• Sarah Garrodd and Gloria Sun (Browns Bay Taiaotea Kindergarten)

• Tony Sands (Mairangi Bay Surf Lifesaving Club)

• Dave Sheppard (Browns Bay Presbyterian Church)

Parks and Community Facilities: July work

Scroll through for work that occurred around our area in July.

Coastal monitoring data now available

Auckland's coastal monitoring data is now publicly viewable on Auckland Council’s newly launched Coastal Monitoring Portal.

We collect really useful data from coastal cameras on our beaches that is used to inform a range of research, as well as allow our teams to better understand the current state of and the impact of climate change on our coastline. This information (including sand levels, imagery, wave and water levels) can now be shared and used widely by community groups, academics and members of the public.

Understanding our coast better

Long-term coastal monitoring datasets are valuable resources used to deepen our understanding of the state of Auckland’s beaches, as well as explore the drivers of coastal change.

This is achieved using a range of tools. Real-time kinematic (or RTK) GPS and drone survey data is collected to monitor changes in sand levels and the shape of the beach over time. Wave buoys and tidal gauges are used to record the wave conditions and water levels that drive changes at our beaches.

Coastal monitoring cameras are used to provide real-time imagery of selected Auckland beaches. We currently have eight cameras installed around Auckland, with one more to be installed at Onetangi in the next few months.

The coastal monitoring cameras provide a comprehensive view of beach response to storms and other dynamic events over time – the newest cameras have been installed at Long Bay and Mairangi Bay. These cameras were funded by the local board from small revenue from the Browns Bay Sunday markets over several years.

Within the council, the data will help inform and implement Shoreline Adaptation Plans and support informed coastal management decisions. Monitoring beach response and recovery to storm events also provides crucial data to improve emergency response plans for Auckland.

Find out more

You can check out the ‘About’ and ‘FAQ’ page on our website to find out more about Auckland’s Coastal Monitoring Programme or here to check out the other environmental data collected by Auckland’s Environmental Evaluation and Monitoring Unit.

Look out for our Coastal Processes State and Trends Report to be published in September this year, for more context and detail on coastal change at key Auckland beaches. Keep an eye on: knowledgeauckland.co.nz

You can also reach out to the team with your questions or to request data: coastalmonitoring@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz.