Clearly this is not a sustainable strategy to house our people, either now or in the future. Yet at last week's Hastings District Council Meeting, the Councillors agreed to take yet another 21 hectares for housing in the Howard St area by Parkvale School.
Councillors are not all stupid, so why would they do something so obviously wrong?
There are three reasons. The first is because they have no collective memory of the many subdivisions the Council has approved grabbing land over the past few decades.
Councillors are merely there for three or six years and gone again. Then replaced by new Councillors who also have no knowledge of this wasteful and profligate history.
The second is that they have been convinced that there is a shortage of available sections to satisfy current demand. So they must make more land available.
The third is that they take comfort in the Heretaunga Plains Urban Development Strategy. (HPUDS). This is a plan developed by the three local Councils that looks at future housing requirements in our region out to 2045 and earmarks greenfields sites to satisfy future demand.
HPUDS proposes that to protect our valuable soils 60% of future developments must be intensification within existing urban boundaries, 35% should be greenfields development and 5% rural lifestyle.
The plan predicts a need for 10,600 new housing sites by 2045. The 35% greenfields, when split half between Hastings and Napier, means each city only need find 60 sites annually.
Already with the Lyndhurst subdivision there are 270 sections earmarked with hundreds more to come. And for those who prefer Havelock North, there will be an additional, 360 sections off Iona Rd and more than 300 off Romanes Rd. These are are well through planning stages. Even without Howard St more than a 10 year supply will be available.
The proposed sites in Iona Rd and Romanes Rd will allow development on relatively poor soil which will not unduly affect the productive capacity of Heretaunga. On the other hand, Howard St, like all other land on the edges of Hastings, is highly productive soil. And much of Howard St has already been swallowed up by developers with dollar signs in their eyes. Putting pressure on the Council to make the wrong decision - which, of course, they have done.
The HPUDS agreed target of 60% intensification within existing boundaries is a challenging, but compelling target. This will require some careful thought and investment on the Council's part to achieve. And it must be achieved.
But to wait until 2045 to get there is unacceptable. By then another 10% of our productive capacity will have disappeared under concrete and bitumen. Over the past three years, 75% of all new sections in Hastings have been greenfields or rural - the precise opposite of what the HPUDS strategy demands.
Yet at yesterday's meeting the Council spent no time planning or even talking about this. In fact I have yet to see any coherent discussion or plan for intensification in the seven years that the HPUDS strategy has been alive.
The same mistake has been made in the Auckland housing frenzy. Half of Pukekohe, the market garden for the north, has been swallowed up by developers for housing without any thought for the consequences.
Someone must stand up and say enough! We must protect our most valuable land!
Will it be the new Mayor? Or will they never learn?
Peter Beaven is a Hawke's Bay Regional councillor and is a former chief executive of Pipfruit New Zealand .
