This issue . • Wake up call for region • ‘It’s not my problem’, or is it? • Where has all the shingle gone? • Reporting the spoilers • Community group vision • Tsunami warning prototype Contact WOW see page 2 NEWSLETTER NUMBER 5 • APRIL MAY 2011 WOW Inc MISSION STATEMENT To find and implement solutions for serious erosion at Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton and unite the City-wide ‘cup of coffee’ rate Cape Coast community to beautify, protect and promote the coastline to stop coast becoming toast as an asset for the wider Hawke’s Burden too great for locals only Bay region. :: Keith Newman :: Illustration by Andy Heyward WOW’s business case for coastal protection will require visionary leadership from Hastings District Council, taking into account the long term social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits for the wider region. WOW has asked the Hastings District Council, which is compiling a cost model to show how the groyne field can be paid for, to hold off on releasing any data until all parties can agree on a suitable approach. It wants to work with council on achieving a city-wide rating approach, which it has previously referred to as a ‘cup of coffee’ rate, and cautions that any cost model released at this early stage would be unhelpful. WOW’s resource consent application will quantify and unworkable. the wider benefits in detail and show clearly A levy of around $28,000 per year per what the city and the region stand to gain by property to cover the council’s quote of literally and figuratively by “Giving Hawke’s Bay $18.5 million for a field of 13 groynes would have an edge’. devastated the community quicker than serious The Serjeant Report intended to show whether or inundation. Reports slow not the WOW proposal is likely to succeed in Both councils later admitted they never intended to getting resource consent is due for release any follow through on either the impossible rate or the protection progress day now. Cost issues were to be dealt with less researched ‘managed retreat’ option put to the WOW tech team update separately. community. WOW says the only other option: ‘do nothing’ would When we discussed progress of our Raise that by a cookie be even more costly, requiring a civil emergency to coastal protection proposal at our first WOW meeting for 2011, committee With up to $2 million set aside for re-routing parts be declared in the case of a major inundation, with member Johnny Bridgeman quipped “you of East Rd/Clifton Rd in the event of ‘managed the cost of clean up and possible legal claims borne sure wouldn’t want to be getting anything retreat’ or ‘do nothing’ plus a 10 percent public by both Hastings District and Hawke’s Bay Regional done in a hurry”. good input WOW believes it has a solid business councils. case. As far as WOW is aware there are no contingency The WOW technical team was still waiting for the results of an important series of It has undertaken to provide council with a clear plans for homeowners if such an event were to occur peer reviews that had been promised by commitment relating to its benefactor contribution and no firm plans for ‘managed retreat’. September 2010 and it could still be the once all the other numbers are in. This is precisely why it is dedicated to achieving a end of March or mid-April before the main more constructive outcome that benefits all parties. Originally WOW suggested the council levy a ‘cup report is delivered. WOW continues to urge both councils to work together of coffee’ rate increase to cover any deficit in paying Continued on page 3 for the protection plan. As the price of coffee has to remove the bureaucratic gone up, it now suggests this may be a ‘cup of obstacles to progressing coffee and a cookie’ rating, spread over 25 years. with the WOW groyne field by pooling resources and A major concern at this stage is that Hastings making saving the Cape District Council will revert to the ‘beneficiaries pay’ Coast a common goal. model which will place the burden of saving the Cape Coast on those who dwell along the beach What if it was Napier? front. Protecting ratepayers and We are all ‘beneficiaries’ public amenities from breaches of the coastline Such an approach would fly in the face of WOW’s should be seen as the joint undertaking to locals that they wouldn’t be taxed responsibility of local off their properties, following a similar approach authorities. two years ago that was rejected as unfair, unjust Continued on page 2 Wake up call for region: Critical time for Cape Coast Editorial :: Keith Newman WOW remains hopeful that common sense and Retreat rejected the pioneering spirit that enabled Hawke’s Bay to rise from the dust of the 1931 earthquake will The Cape Coast does not want to become (CCCG) plan, the case for sharing the cost prevail and our local authorities will rise to the the New Zealand test case for managed of protection across Hawke’s Bay seems challenge to save the Cape Coast before it is too retreat, which can only leaves social, more watertight than ever. late. economic and physical chaos in its wake. Doing nothing also invites disaster. Cape Coast erosion is a Hawke’s This is a feisty newsletter because so much is at Bay issue and requires all local stake. Disasters have costly consequences, as recent events have clearly shown, and authorities to work together to WOW believes the only logical way forward for failure to protect, prevent or plan for ensure it is resolved. Further delays the Cape Coast erosion problem is for the joint situations like those facing the Cape Coast because councils refuse to co- councils to apply to the Environment Court raises serious questions. supporting the construction of a robust, cost operate, ignoring the problem or effective, well engineered groyne field. While WOW’s grand plan, put to the joint passing the buck in a ‘user pays’’ councils two years ago, has been refined funding approach are not For nearly eight months WOW Inc’s efforts to and adjusted to align with consent achieve coastal protection have been under the requirements, much still hangs in the acceptable. eagle eye of four ‘peer reviewers’ tasked with balance, including who pays for the determining whether our professionally structured resource consent application and whether If you have not received these newsletters, plan is likely to pass resource consent. a city-wide rate is appropriate. would like more information or want to be added to our mailing list please contact Three of these reviews will inform independent If the Serjeant Report is positive then its WOW Chairperson consultant and planner Dave Serjeant of up to our local authorities to drive it Ann Redstone: 11 Springfield Rd, Haumoana Merestone Ltd who’s report to the joint councils forward. Prior to the last election, Hastings Email: [email protected] will help determine their preferred course of action. mayor Lawrence Yule looked like he might WOW spokesperson champion the cause. If we go direct to the Environment Court, Hastings Keith Newman: [email protected] District Council and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council He’s seen the business case and unless are freed from any regulatory role and can show the peer review suggests otherwise, we WOW Newsletter: leadership in ensuring protection happens in the remain hopeful he and his councillors will most efficient way. Editor: Keith Newman: follow through. If HBRC gets on board, a Email: [email protected] great sigh of relief will run through the Cape Writers: Keith Newman, Michelle Wade, Rex Continued from front page Coast and hopefully wider Hawke’s Bay. Read, Jack Hughes, Peter Larsen, Emma The central government role through the We’ve been reminded by a number of Hagen Department of Conservation (DOC) is to ensure influential people and civic leaders that Subbing: Michelle Wade, Peter Larsen, Ann the natural environment is not damaged and that WOW’s protection plan with its strong Redstone future generations continue to have access to community support would be considered Layout and design: Margot Macphail safe beaches. a welcome gift by most councils around Webmaster: Andy ‘The King’ Heyward If the city of Napier, or for that matter any other the country. Website: www.capecoast.co.nz coastal city or town, was threatened by the level Facebook: of erosion being experienced along the Cape Reviewer reviewed “Save the Cape Coast” Coast it would have been sorted out years ago. While the preliminary reviews dealing with Having a sports park, a swimming complex or a the engineering of the groynes and shingle velodrome are all good things that will benefit a The WOW certain sector of society for which all of society movement seem to have found common is expected to pay. ground with WOW’s own findings, the cost-benefit reviewer - looking at groynes Committee Providing stop banks to prevent rivers overflowing vs managed retreat - clearly did not Chairperson, convener: Ann Redstone and flooding of good horticulture and farm land understand the brief. Darky (Miki) Unahi, kaumatua, Matahiwi is a fundamental responsibility; protecting the Marae coast should progress with the same priority and Fortunately WOW discovered this in time Heather Scherger, secretary, Te Awanga urgency. and was forced to invest in its own report Progressive Association (TAPA) After all if erosion and inundation break through to challenge incomplete and shallow Margaret Read, treasurer, distribution the last few metres of land on to Clifton Rd over findings that could have adversely Rex Read, distribution and technical team impacted two years of planning and the next couple of years it’s all downhill from Peter Larsen, technical team there to the shopping centre, placing homes, research.