A group of Lake Hawea foreshore maintenance volunteers is urging the public to think about how they want the foreshore developed, as a deadline for establishing a landscape and management plan for the area looms.
The Thursday Group helps maintain the foreshore in front of Lake Hawea township by removing weeds, noxious plants and wilding trees and replanting native varieties.
It operates under the auspices of the Hawea Community Association (HCA) and the local branch of the Forest and Bird Society, with the consent of Land Information New Zealand (Linz), which manages the land for the Crown. Due to a possible handover of the management of the foreshore from Linz to the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC), tentatively scheduled for July 1, and a subsequent landscape and management plan deadline of May 2009, Thursday Group members say there is an urgent need for the community to have its say on foreshore development.
HCA president Errol Carr said the takeover would involve an agreement with Linz to undertake a five-year weed control programme and consultation with the community on drawing up a landscape and management plan for the area. It was a requirement of the Contact Energy Ltd Clutha River resource consent that such a plan be in place by May 2009, following consultation with QLDC, the HCA and Otago Regional Council.
Mr Carr said the group wanted to issue a ‘‘heads up'' to the community highlighting the process was well under way and likely to be formalised within weeks.
‘‘We want people to start thinking about the foreshore . . . about what they want,'' Mr Carr said.
He expected most of the community would endorse protection of the remaining areas of indigenous native plantings, balanced with amenity plantings, recreation areas, walkways and cycle tracks.
‘‘But this is all untested, because as a community, and as a district, we've never been consulted on this.
‘‘Let's start pushing buttons and make this happen, because the consultation and planning process takes time and time is running out.''
Mr Carr said the transfer of management responsibility to QLDC would give the community an authority to talk to about the development and implementation of a management plan.
‘‘What we've been looking for for quite some years is to have an authority responsible for the whole of the foreshore area and which to a certain extent is going to be accountable to us. As ratepayers, we think QLDC is the best party to do that.''
The foreshore was originally administered by the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand, which had landscaping plans in the early 1980s. With the privatisation of the electricity industry, a small amount of core land around the dam and at Gladstone Gap (halfway along the southern foreshore) was transferred to Contact Energy.
‘‘They [Contact] have no responsibility for other areas of Crown land around the lake foreshore,'' Mr Carr said.
‘‘The ongoing management just fell into a vacuum from the mid-1980s.''
QLDC community services general manager Paul Wilson said the parties involved in the handover were working towards a goal of July 1, but this was not confirmed.
He said the council acknowledged the ‘‘fantastic job'' the Thursday Group did, but the group's future involvement was yet to be finalised.
Following a handover of management responsibility to QLDC, a draft management plan for the foreshore will be developed during the next 12 months. Consultation will include a series of public workshops and a formal submission process on the draft plan, including a hearing if required.
