Smartgrowth was brought in by our three local Councils about a decade ago. It strongly discourages new housing being built on green field sites.
It prefers to see people living in denser even high-rise housing in ways that are more ‘sustainable'. Not in areas that are where many people might really choose to place their families were they left alone.
Some of planners' picks for squeezing people in are Papamoa, Katikati, Te Puke, Omokoroa and Maketu.
New Zealand has been described as the ‘shaky isles' due to its placement on volcanic fault lines.
It seems to me high-rise buildings are riskier than single storey buildings even with modern building codes.
But there's more. The Bay of Plenty coast line is open to tsunami travelling from more distant earthquakes: in fact from quakes practically anywhere throughout the whole wide Pacific.
Now; where would you feel a bit less at risk? On a low lying, flat sandy plain right on the ocean's edge or on a local hillside say, set back a bit?
It seems Smartgrowth's planners discount this risk. But we have seen recent events in Japan and elsewhere actually happen and will continue happening, forever! Catastrophes in waiting.
Stuart Peat, Katikati.