Kapiti News
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Your local news from Paekakariki to Otaki
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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ON GUARD: Senior Constable Paul Fleck, Constable Rob Campbell and 11-month-old police dog Quita, with four-year-old Paraparaumu Beach Kindergarten students, left to right, Jessica McCullagh, Jessica Winnington, Jenson Fields and Fletcher Cooper. Story page 8. PHOTO: CLOE WILLETTS / KAP210314CWPOLICE
Hazard lines review DAVID HAXTON Coastal hazard mapping lines affecting 1800 property owners weren’t robust enough, an expert panel has concluded. In 2012, council released predicted 50 and 100-year flood lines and placed the information immediately on to property owners’ LIM reports. Several residents formed Coastal Ratepayers United, which questioned the decision and challenged the science behind the predictions. It led to council appointing an expert panel to review the lines. The panel’s report, issued on Friday, said the existing hazard lines weren’t ‘‘sufficiently robust for incorporation into the Proposed District Plan’’. But it felt the work by Coastal Systems and John Lumsden was ‘‘generally of high quality and could be easily modified and
updated to produce best practice for a given scenario’’. ‘‘Should these modified hazard lines impact the built environment, a range of management options should be investigated in the formulation of planning policies, prior to the implementation of any changes to the regulatory regime. ‘‘The feasibility of management options should consider social, environmental and economic factor in assessing how best to address the risks from coastal hazards.’’ Mayor Ross Church said the report seemed thorough and sound and there was ‘‘three weeks for the community to discuss the report so sensible decisions can be made’’. ‘‘That’s something we have to look at very thoroughly and carefully. ‘‘It will obviously need some changes. ‘‘We don’t want to make any kneejerk
decisions. ‘‘We want to talk to the community. ‘‘What tended to happen last time was it went straight from the process and into policy. ‘‘This time, we’re going to talk to people before we do the policy stuff. ‘‘I always talk about people before process and this is the ideal opportunity to do that. ‘‘The whole thing is to talk to the people so we get it right this time.’’ Coastal Ratepayers United spokeswoman Salima Padamsey said ‘‘if CRU hadn’t actively challenged the report over the last 18 months, the whole Proposed District Plan, had it go through the way it had, would have been based on a substandard report, and people would have suffered mortgages, insurances, all kinds of things would have had an impact’’.
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