Te Kopahou Draft Network Plan

We need your thoughts and feedback

We’re developing a Track Network Plan for Te Kopahou Reserve and we want to get your thoughts on the draft. Check out the draft plan before you answer the survey questions below. You can also have a read up about the area and what makes it special as well as the early engagement for the project, to give some background.

This work comes as a result of the recently completed Outer Green Belt management plan. We need a plan that provides opportunities for people to get out and enjoy this rugged and wild reserve, while protecting what makes it so special.

Te Kopahou Reserve is a special area with some key values:

• Large area of rugged and remote coastal landscape on the edge of the Cook Strait
• Significant habitat for rare and threatened native species and coastal eco-systems
• Te Rimurapa heritage precinct of significance to mana whenua
• Historic sites associated with early settlement and World War II
• Visitor destinations including Sinclair Head/Te Rimurapa seal colony, Brooklyn wind turbine
• Hawkins Hill (495m) is the highest point in the Outer Green Belt
• Large area in the north under landfill designation
• Local communities: Brooklyn, Happy Valley, Ōwhiro Bay, as well as rural community
• Community volunteer work happening: Restoration planting, botanical surveys, track building, predator control, beach clean-ups, visitor behaviour education

We need your input to reach a final plan, so as well as the online engagement running over summer, our rangers will be out and about talking to users of the area and encouraging them to hop online and make a submission when they get home. We’ll also have some drop-in sessions at Brooklyn Wind Turbine carpark and the Owhiro Bay Information Centre carpark – dates tbc but we’ll be adding them to the website and letting you know on social media.

Submissions close 5pm on 28 Feb 2021.

For more information email bec.ramsay@wcc.govt.nz

Drop in sessions

• On Saturday 12 December we’ll be at the Owhiro Bay Information Centre carpark from 9am-11am and the Brooklyn Wind Turbine carpark from 2.30pm-4.30pm.
• On Saturday 30 January we'll be at the Owhiro Bay Information Centre carpark from 9am-11am and the Brooklyn Wind Turbine carpark from 2.30pm-4.30pm.
• On Sunday 21 February we'll be at the Brooklyn Wind Turbine Carpark from 9am-11am and the Owhiro Bay Information Centre Carpark from 2.30pm-4.30pm.

What happened to this consultation?

The draft plan was open for public submissions from December through to the end of February. Over that period we held several open days at both the Brooklyn Wind Turbine carpark and the Te Kopahou Visitors’ Centre, showing visitors the draft plan and telling them about the submission period. Rangers were also talking to reserve users who were out and about over the summer months. When the submission period closed on 28 February we had received a total of just over 300 submissions – which is great!

Next steps

• We will be spending some time going through all of the submissions (April/May)
• Submitters will be invited to make an oral submission to Councillors (June)
• Oral submissions are scheduled to be heard on 5 August
• Officers will get in touch with individual submitters and groups if there are still matters to clarify/understand from submissions (August)
• Officers work through what changes then need to be made and will prepare a final plan and report (August/September)
• The Council will make a decision on the final plan and report at Pūroro Rangaranga - Social, Cultural & Economic meeting on Thursday 2 December. The final report is available to read here here. An additional report by Envisage on track feasibility and networks was prepared to inform the plan and can be read under 'documents' to the right of the page.