A refusal to grant fast-track consent for a controversial Bay of Islands boat-launching facility could be the final nail in the coffin for the long-running project.
The boat ramp and car park was proposed in 2020 and had sharply divided the small community at Rangitāne, about 13km from Kerikeri.
The most recent version of the plan included a double-width ramp, a reconstructed jetty, a floating pontoon, a walkway, and a 7400 square-metre reclamation in Kerikeri Inlet for boat-trailer parking.
The reclamation, which would have been about 150m long and 60m wide, proved the most contentious part of the plan.
It was also the reason an expert panel refused, by two votes to one, to grant fast-tracked consent.
The Far North District Council and Far North Holdings applied for consent under a previous version of the Fast-Track Consenting Act, introduced during the Covid pandemic in 2020, not under the current fast-track legislation.
In a recently published decision, panel chairman Alan Webb said it had been “a difficult matter to resolve” due to the large reclamation required.
While the panel appreciated the ongoing need for boat launching facilities in Northland, the proposal had to be considered against the relevant statutory and planning rules.
In particular, the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement said reclamations should be avoided, and approved only exceptionally if certain criteria were met.
The other members of the panel were coastal consultant Juliane Chetham and Far North District councillor Felicity Foy.
Webb noted the current boat ramp could be upgraded to double-width without the reclamation, which aimed to give people wanting to launch their boats at Rangitāne somewhere to park.
He said the panel had “significant sympathy” for the application, and accepted that encouraging people to enjoy the Bay of Islands created positive effects for the community.
RNZ has asked the council and Far North Holdings whether they plan to appeal the decision.
The proposal has been staunchly opposed from the get-go by the Rangitāne Residents Association – which raised the money for the original jetty – but strongly supported by another local group, the Rangitāne Recreation Association.
In 2020 the Rangitāne project was granted $2.4 million from the Government’s “shovel-ready” Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund, with the council committing another $1.2m.
The project’s many obstacles since then included having to commission a new cultural report after Ngāpuhi said the iwi hadn’t been properly consulted, and a previous rejection of fast-tracked consent in April 2022, due to a legal ruling about wetlands in an unrelated court case.
As of August 2022, $612,000 had been spent on planning and design, according to a council report.
Another Far North Holdings boat ramp and car park, at Rangitoto/Windsor Landing on the opposite southern side of Kerikeri Inlet, faced stiff opposition at first but was completed in 2021.
rnz.co.nz
