'Bauldie' as his is now.
Opinion
FIRST committee week of the year, and there’s quite a lot of business, some of which might even prove a little contentious, though I doubt there’s anything to match the council buildings for fieriness.
Community development kicks off Wednesday morning, with the environment committee at 1pm. That features a discussion
on climate change. Councils are required to develop strategies to deal with climate issues, particularly for rising sea levels. Generally that means greater scrutiny of residential development near the sea. Unfortunately people, being pesky and difficult by nature, actually like living by the sea, which will create some further tensions.
Climate change causes council alignments to change, usually meaning it becomes Roger Haisman and me against the rest. Not that I would class us as “deniers”, we’re perfectly willing to accept that digging up oil and coal that took billions of years to sequester and burning it off in the space of a couple of hundred years, yep, that probably messes up the balance a bit. And burning off vast tracts of rainforest probably isn’t the cleverest thing in the world either. But those are obvious scientific facts. Blaming cows, oh get off the grass. I suspect that if sea levels do rise it will be so gradual that Wainui property owners don’t have to worry themselves unduly. (Oh dear, those comments should be good for another round of angry letters!)
We continue our review of the pest management strategy, particular interest in possum control. There are those who believe the council doesn’t need to deliver this service in-house, but submissions to the draft plan seem to be fairly comfortable with it that way.
Also the Sponge Bay subdivision consents, effects on Wainui Stream. Reports seem to indicate this is not a big deal, but I know there are plenty of locals who find that hard to believe. And another report discussing how to use that $50,000 windfall to improve the stream.
