Council to unveil master plan to help grow Waitārere Beach community

Waitārere Beach's master plan will be launched on the weekend at the Waitārere Domain.

Waitārere is a popular beach settlement that provides residents and holidaymakers with an attractive lifestyle.

The Horowhenua Growth Strategy 2040 predicts an additional 165 residential homes and 157 greenbelt residential homes will be required between now and 2040.

The future growth area at Waitārere Beach includes a number of properties in different ownership. Some of the challenges for development are topography (dunes), archaeology (evidence of human activity from before 1900) and connectivity (new housing areas and existing streets and parks).

Therefore, to provide a guide for future growth and take a proactive approach to addressing these challenges a master plan is being created.

The master plan area is located to the east of the existing residential areas - to the east and west of Forest Rd, as well as an area to the north of Waitārere Beach Rd by the dune lake.

Council will be launching the draft master plan on January 18 at the Waitārere Domain and are available to discuss this anytime between 11am and 3pm.

The documents will be available online from January 18 and feedback will be welcomed until February 14.

The development of the master plan is occurring alongside the preparation of the Waitārere Community Plan. Both will be instrumental in the community's development and successful growth.

Chorus is planning fibre roll-out to Waitārere Beach in 2020.

The recycling centre in the surf club carpark is now here to stay. The recycling centre is provided as well as the kerbside recycling service.

A study is planned for this financial year on the feasibility of council providing a reticulated drinking water system.

Beach clean-up events are run by the community every month. Check out the 'What's Up Waitarere' Facebook page for more details.

There is a bus to Levin every Friday. It picks up passengers from the Four Square at 10.25am and drops them back at 2.50pm.

When constructed the Waitārere Beach Surf Lifesaving Club building was located at the front of the beach, however, due to the accreting coastline (dunes moving towards the sea), the building is now a significant distance from the area patrolled by the surf lifeguards.

This means the current building and lookout tower can no longer be used to patrol the beach. To address this issue council and the surf lifesaving club went through a process to designate an area on the foredune closer to the sea for a new building.

A designation is like a spot zoning which allows for a specific activity to occur in the area. The designation would allow the surf club building and associated activities to operate from that area.

The designation was approved in 2016, however, the land was still part of the foreshore and not within the district council jurisdiction and did not have a certificate of title.

At the same time as the designation process, an accretion claim was made to Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) for this land to formally become part of the foredune reserve area council manages and to include the area for the proposed surf lifesaving club building. This process is still under way, awaiting a decision from LINZ before the project can proceed.

Avid users of the beach, Poroutawhao School and community were engaged for ideas in May of last year.

Their favourite parts of Waitarāre Beach were the forest, skate park, courts, slide and fort. What they thought would be cool to have generated 78 ideas. The most popular ideas were huts/flying fox, fort improvements, slide, swings, hamster wheel and monkey bars.

They came up with 30 ideas for activities to include: more tracks for BMX, scooter, motorbike, skatepark improvements and field or court for more sports.