Hahei Residents Draw Line in the Sand

Hundreds of Hahei residents gathered at the local hall on November 28 to voice concerns regarding the latest plan by the Department of Conservation, iwi and Thames Coromandel District Council to build a walkway along the coast. “Everyone at the meeting welcomes visitors and the opportunity to share beautiful surroundings with visitors from near and far. In general they support the idea of regional economic development,” said meeting chair Bill Stead.

Locals are clearly happy to share Hahei's beauty with the current 200,000 visitors per annum, but they also wish to promote a healthy and safe community that needs to be resilient in the face of rapidly growing tourism. “Welcoming even more visitors into a tiny community must be done with the community's blessing and the visitor's health, safety and welfare in mind,” says Stead. “With visitor numbers already going up by 15,000 per year, the Great Walk proposal has shone the spotlight on the many problems already facing this small community, and these are all problems exacerbated by the influx of visitors.”

When populations grow exponentially as they do in Hahei over the summer “decent infrastructure needs to be in position before further visitors can be adequately welcomed,” says ratepayer spokesman John North, “There is nothing iconic about boasting the region's only unswimmable river, the Wigmore Stream, that pours straight into the sea, when the sands are not blocking its outlet. Current drinking water supply barely copes with the present summer influx. Infrastructure must be fully operational, not just dismissed with a, "we will deal with that later" comment. For starters there is a need for more clean water, parking, signage, footpaths, toilets, traffic, and proper zoning.”

The organizers of the Great Walk need to do several things according to residents who attended the meeting. Community members need to be included in the management of the project because it directly affects the community. The organisers need to bring up to standard the current infrastructure that not only services the small community but the nearly quarter of a million domestic and foreign tourists. With existing infrastructure already failing there has to be a halt on any activities that will compound the problem. And if there is to be a plan to increase the tourist visits then the costs of the infrastructure required to assure safe and pleasant visitor experiences need to be fully paid by national, regional and district-wide funding, in that order. Regional rates presently fund the Cambridge Velodrome to the tune of $11million. Cathedral Cove visitor numbers dwarf those visiting the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust that has received more than $5million from regional ratepayers.

Residents attending Saturday’s meeting were adamant the costs of expansion to meet tourist demand should not fall on the shoulders of Mercury Bay ratepayers.

ENDS

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