Sustainable development

This was a campaign platform when I ran for Porirua City Council this year.

Porirua is about to grow, and grow fast and big.

Three major developments are planned for the north of the northern ward: Plimmerton Farm, Mt Welcome (the deer farm just south of Pukerua Bay) and Gray’s Farm in Pauatahanui. According to information PCC provided with its Growth Strategy, these could include at least 2,500 new houses and another 7,000 extra people.

Plimmerton Farm is the first out of the blocks; 2,000 houses and more than 5,000 people. You’ve probably seen the plans, with a shopping centre, retirement village and school. This will seriously impact the surrounding landscape and environment, the most precious part of which is Taupō Swamp, an outstanding wetland on the other side of State Highway 1.

Taupō Swamp is a Significant Natural Wetland and is one of the largest remaining harakeke swamps in the Wellington region. It’s home to 19 indigenous bird species (six with a national threat ranking), nine indigenous freshwater fish species (four classified as At Risk-Declining). It has a diverse community of more than 200 plant species. It’s already under pressure from water and sediment runoff from farming and surrounding roads and railway line, weed invasion and pest animals.

However, there is a lot we don’t know about the surrounding land. There is no independent peer reviewed base line study of the nature and extent of the freshwater systems within Plimmerton Farms. And there aren’t any in-depth studies showing how these systems contribute to the ecology of the area. There’s a lot of water runoff from Plimmerton Farm. A planting day organised in the swamp recently had to be postponed because the area was flooded, and the rain hadn’t been that heavy. What will it be like when there are more hard surfaces such as roofs, roads and hard landscaping feeding water towards Taupō Swamp? The developers say they will make the site hydrologically neutral, but haven’t been able to show that this is possible over the whole site.

Across Porirua, the population is projected to grow by up to 29,000 in the next 30 years, living in an extra 9,000 new homes. All on new roads, with new water and sewer pipes, and all the other new infrastructure neighbourhoods need. The funding to support the development and the new infrastructure needs to be sustainable, too. The infrastructure needs to be future-proofed, built to withstand whatever climate change might throw at it, and be affordable for this and future generations. These new communities also need all the social and recreational facilities that make a neighbourhood a great place to live — and the council has to pay to build or look after most of them.

There’s almost a perfect storm heading towards Porirua — rapid growth and repairs to ageing infrastructure combined with our limited rating base and income sources. We can’t rely on growth to pay for all our future needs, and we don’t have many new funding tricks we can use.

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