The coastal environment is constantly changing as the shoreline moves and sea level varies. These natural changes become a hazard when they threaten human life and property.
Coastal erosion and coastal flooding are the main coastal hazards in our city. Coastal hazard risks will be made worse in the future as climate change leads to rising sea levels and an increase in the frequency of damaging and disruptive weather events.
Porirua City Council is considering the impacts of climate change more broadly and how we might look to mitigate and adapt to their effects in an overarching strategy, called Te Ao Hurihuri (the ever changing world). For more information visit our Te Ao Hurihuri (the ever changing world) page.
Porirua City Council is undertaking a full review of the District Plan. The District Plan tells us what we can and can’t do with our land. It makes rules about where we can subdivide, what activities we can do and where we can do them.
As part of this review, the government requires us to address a lot of things to keep our communities safe and to protect the local environment. This includes a requirement to identify areas that could be impacted by coastal hazards over the next 100 years, and to appropriately manage these areas.
We have engaged the Focus Resource Management Group to help us to understand the coastal hazard risk and management options in Porirua.
Our coast differs across Porirua. To understand the specific coastal environment, community values and coastal hazards that affect particular areas we have held three rounds of community workshops. These were held in Titahi Bay, Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay, Pauatahanui and Paremata in August 2018, November 2018 and July 2019. These have been led by our coastal hazard experts Jim Dahm and Bronwen Gibberd.
These workshops helped us to build a shared understanding of the coast by hearing from the local communities about their experiences and knowledge of the coastal environment.
In September 2019 we released a full draft District Plan for community consultation which contains objectives, policies, rules and maps relating to coastal hazards.
This consultation ultimately helped to inform the report Porirua City Coastal Hazards 2020.
The next step in the District Plan review process was notification of the Proposed District Plan.
You can review the information that was shared at each community workshop in July 2019 here:
Titahi Bay – Coastal Hazard Presentation
Plimmerton & Karehana – Coastal Hazards Presentation
Pukerua Bay – Coastal Hazards Presentation
Pauatahanui – Coastal Hazards Presentation
Paremata, Golden Gate & Browns Bay – Coastal Hazards Presentation
Please note that these presentations were prepared to provide information and outline options for coastal hazard management at community meetings in July 2019. The slides are reproduced here to encourage further community discussion and feedback.
