Partnering for protection
Oral presentation by Keith Newman
Spokesperson for WOW (Walking on Water) Incorporated
To the Hastings District Council, Thursday 3 June 2010

WOW is a volunteer group working for the protection, unity and beautification of Haumoana, Te Awanga & Clifton; hereafter referred to as the Cape Coast, a small community with a big heart.

As you will know our future hangs in the balance. In fact decisions made by the Hastings District Council over the next few weeks in regard to this iconic pebble-laden stretch of paradise, will determine whether the Cape Coast continues to become a demolition zone or one of the keys to putting the heart back into Hawke’s Bay.

Local authorities have given us three options for dealing with the erosion and inundation threat that has been facing this coast for decades:  ‘do nothing’, ‘managed retreat’ or ‘hard engineering.

We believe doing nothing is not an option and retreat is a declaration of defeat. A field of groynes and low level crest strengthening however will give us at least another 50-years.

WOW is not only campaigning to save the 21 homes currently under threat along Clifton Rd as some have suggested. We’re here for all 850 home owners and businesses along the coast and determined to protect both private and public assets and ensure a vibrant future for those who live here today and for future generations.
The fact is many of the properties at risk are family homes that have been there for several generations and are occupied by ordinary New Zealanders, some are well off but there are many young couples struggling with a mortgage and others in their retirement years. Their home might be their only asset and security.

Alongside the award winning restaurants and wineries, café’s, museums, tourist operators, accommodation and camping grounds are a growing number of smart small businesses including artists and craftspeople, innovators and entrepreneurs who think this is a great place to live and work.
We believe the Cape Coast has hardly touched on its true potential as a regional asset with a growing number of things to see and do and experience and enjoy the best the bay has to offer.
The National Cycleway, also known as the Rotary Pathways Trust Cycleway, will go right along our beachfront. WOW welcomes this development but believes every effort should be made to ensure sections of this track in vulnerable areas are not washed away during high swells and turbulent wave action.
We have an all encompassing vision for the Cape Coast and all it has to offer, including the cycleway, and we think Hastings District Council should not only be part of that vision, but help to drive it forward.

Our submission to the annual plan therefore is two-fold: ‘A Cape Coast Community Vision’ which is a forward looking statement of intent to rebrand and invigorate the community and ‘Hard engineering not a hard decision’, the framework for a detailed plan to Save the Cape Coast.
We are proposing a carefully engineered groyne field that will build volume back on our beaches, prevent further erosion and restore confidence and security to Hawke’s Bay’s largest coastal communities.
This is our second submission to the annual plan. Since this time last year WOW has made considerable progress with our coastal engineering proposal; our committee has met most weeks, we have been part of the Joint Councils Working Committee on erosion and we have kept the local community fully informed through newsletters and public meetings.

Through the Joint Council process we have heard all the reasons why what we are proposing will be difficult, and how complex the resource consent processes will be. We believe we have responded professionally and responsibly to most of the challenges placed before us.

Our coastal engineer Steve Moynihan of Moynihan Coastal Consultants has continued to refine a hard engineering solution that we believe will meet all the criteria for resource consent.
WOW has also been greatly encouraged to find common ground during regular meetings with the Hastings District Council executive team. The turning point was the research WOW undertook on the logistics and cost of ‘managed retreat’.
When we merged our data with council research the numbers clearly showed ‘managed retreat’ was going to be far more costly to the community and the council than ‘hard engineering’.
Our managed retreat research, based on a section of the homes and businesses currently at risk, showed a cost of at least $12.7 million for removal, clean-up and relocation. This includes around $4 million to reroute the access road and provide alternative access to homes cut off by closing sections of Beach Rd, East Rd and Clifton Rd. This would be a direct cost to the council, and ultimately Hastings District ratepayers.

The economic cost of removing those homes did not take into account the social impact on those home owners who would have to move, or the 200 or so other homes facing the same ultimatum over the next 5-10 years; some possibly much earlier. Either way ‘managed retreat would essentially rip the heart out of our community.
Extending Parkhill road down to Te Awanga did not take into account the fact that major property owners including Beach House, Clearview and Elephant Hill do not want an alternative road passing behind or beside their beach-facing properties.
Neither did the managed retreat plan take into account the potential devastation if the 21 most at-risk beachside homes on Clifton Rd were removed. These homes are all that prevent the sea washing over the road into more homes, vineyards, orchard, farmlands and threatening the new housing development.

WOW is confident it has a strong business and engineering case to protect the existing road along with public and private assets.
The first stage of our hard engineering solution; staged construction of seven groynes between the Clifton Rd camping reserve down to the existing groyne at the Tukituki river mouth, would provide long overdue protection for under $5.5 million. If left to fill naturally the cost of the groynes would be $4 million including maintenance.
The costs would increase by $1.5 million if they had to be pre-filled with metal, an option favoured by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. Of course we would prefer the groynes to fill naturally as this would simply be trapping gravel on our own beaches that might otherwise have been harvested by the Awatoto shingle plant.
It has been suggested by the Hastings District Council executive team that the $4 million to replace the current road access might be better invested in the groyne field; half for the current proposal to protect Haumoana and the balance on a stage two project to help curb erosion at Te Awanga and Clifton.
Meanwhile, the current challenge to WOW from both the Hastings District and Hawke’s Bay Regional councils is to prove that our protection plan can pass muster. To that end both councils have engaged independent planning consultant Dave Serjeant of MereStone, to determine the likelihood of success in achieving resource consent.
We want to thank Hastings District Council for its part in engaging Mr Serjeant who we have found helpful, respectful, and thorough. He has begun evaluating our work to date, outlined a programme of what needs to be done and set out a budget for the likely cost of that work.
The next stage for us, hopefully in conjunction with Hastings, is to commission the additional reports and employ the experts needed to satisfy the requirements of the consent process.
WOW is continuing with its own research and reports, having already invested around $12,000 of community funds. Meanwhile, with funding allocated from Hastings council, a peer review of Moynihan Coastal Consultants use of the ‘crenulate bay’ or coastal equilibrium theory is currently underway.
This is necessary to ensure that the base premise behind the construction and impact of the groyne field stands expert scrutiny from the presiding commissioners and/or the Environment Court.
WOW is now seeking to formalise a partnership relationship with Hastings District Council to champion this project and see it through from resource consent to construction. From the outset all that WOW has asked from the local authorities is that they cover the entire cost of getting our proposal through the resource consent process.
As part of our submissions we are asking the council to set aside funds to cover those costs.  While Hastings would be the prime partner, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is also being asked to make a contribution.

WOWs part in the deal is that we will ensure the construction of the actual groyne field is be done at minimal cost to local or regional ratepayers. WOW has a lawyer’s letter from a local benefactor guaranteeing up to $3 million toward that end.
When you add the contribution that might otherwise have gone to alternative road access we could rightly say we already have $5 million toward the stage groyne field.

Based on those numbers worked out in conjunction with the Hastings council team,  if the balance was to be shared by the district ratepayers it would be less than $3 a year per household over 25-years. In other words less than a cup of coffee to Save the Cape Coast.

If we can show that we have a partnership with Hastings, we believe other community funding is likely to be made available, any ratepayer costs would become negligible.
What council, having weighed up the long term benefits to the region of saving an iconic tourism focused coastal community would turn its back on such an opportunity, when the business and engineering case is so clear?

One of the main obstacles we have had to confront are the barriers allegedly presented by National Coastal Policy Plan, the Regional Coastal Policy Document and the Resource Management Act. We have been told by certain parties that Hastings District and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, while they might support our proposal, in the end have little say in the matter.
Our reading of the legislation shows there is sufficient flexibility to allow hard engineering, if it is proven to be ‘the best practicable option’, to proceed.
Having done its homework, consulted the experts, researched the costings and alternatives WOW now has the documentation to prove that we are at a ‘last resort’ situation and that hard engineering, namely our proposed groyne field, is the best practicable option to end erosion along the Cape Coast.
WOW called a meeting with our two local MPs Craig Foss and Chris Tremain, local businesses and the Hastings executive team, to better understand the so-called central government obstacles councils were concerned about.
The MPs were surprised at the progress WOW had made, were pleased to see a partnership was being considered with Hastings District Council and offered their full support if that partnership could be formalised.

According to subsequent letters we have received from both the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for the Environment, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and Hastings District Council do not have their hands tied by central government; they have full ‘discretion’ in this matter.
We remain grateful for Mayor Lawrence Yule’s encouragement and consistent statements during the latter part of this year that he will do all he can to find a solution to the erosion issue at Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton.
Rather than allowing the ocean to keep coming and turning our communities into a demolition zone, or forcing us to move to some as yet undesignated location at huge cost, we ask Hastings District councilors to support the WOW proposal to Save the Cape Coast.
WOW has a convincing business and engineering case. We hope that Dave Serjeant’s full report will show this. We plan to pay our way and in the spirit of good faith, and co-operative effort, fostered with the Hastings council over the past six months, we look forward to working with the council in seeing this joint project through to completion.
Simply put: WOW is asking councilors to stand with us as we seek to protect, rebuild confidence and transform the forgotten coast, the literal edge of Hawke’s Bay, so the Cape Coast becomes a place we’re all proud of.

Partnering for protection (41.5kb Doc file)

WOW (Walking on Water)
For further information see www.capecoast.co.nz
or contact chairperson: Ann Redstone: Cell: 027-3867907
Email: agoodin@slingshot.co.nz or spokesperson Keith Newman 06-8750116