Bay residents happy to work with Doc

Pine trees and grass burn on the Dublin Bay lake reserve in March this year. Photo: Kerrie...
Pine trees and grass burn on the Dublin Bay lake reserve in March this year. Photo: Kerrie Waterworth.
Dublin Bay residents say they are "delighted" to be developing a lakefront reserve management plan in conjunction with the Department of Conservation (Doc) and expect to formalise it in about a month.

Dublin Bay residents’ spokesman Arne Gawn said the seven families who lived in the area held a meeting two months ago to put forward ideas.

Those ideas had since been submitted to Doc.

"We are working through which ones work best for both parties," he said.

Earlier this year, Dublin Bay residents criticised the Queenstown Lakes District Council for not doing enough to maintain its Dublin Bay lake reserve following two serious scrub fires in March.

The land was subsequently transferred to Doc management.

The council had managed the area of reserve land, which was between two Doc parcels of reserve.

The fires were on Doc land, but residents were also concerned mature wilding trees on the QLDC land posed a fire threat to nearby homes.

QLDC parks and reserve planning manager Stephen Quin said the land was transferred to Doc management in March.

A resolution to transfer the reserve to Doc had been passed in 2009, but was not enacted until this year, he said.

Doc senior ranger Annette Grieve said the transfer was gazetted last month and the reserve was officially now part of the Doc-managed Dublin Bay-Outlet-Albert Town Recreation Reserve.

Revoking of the land was part of a Land Rationalisation Review in 2009 between Doc and QLDC to "identify what land would sit better with which agency in terms of recreational or conservational values."

Doc received a formal request from QLDC in March this year for it to go ahead, she said.

Mr Arne said the residents welcomed having to work with only one organisation.

Ms Grieve confirmed Doc had started working with the Dublin Bay community on long-term management priorities for the foreshore.

kerrie.waterworth@odt.co.nz 

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