Published:  

October 2012
This report is a summary of the discussion and outcomes of the natural character workshop hosted by Marlborough District Council on 30 September 2011.

Summary

Publication cover showing view of northern entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. Photo: Roy Grose.

The focus of this workshop was to review a recent local government natural character assessment against the natural character policies of the NZCPS 2010, as a case study for a small group of natural character and planning practitioners to assess in detail so that useful advice can be provided to councils on implementing the NZCPS 2010 and, particularly, policies 13, 14 and 15.

A range of practitioners with good knowledge of Marlborough, from local and central government and private practice, were invited to attend.

The workshop also sought to look at other examples of different methodologies applied at a similar scale.

It was acknowledged that the review of MDC's work may not be able to be fully implemented in Marlborough because of time and cost constraints (depending on the scale of changes that any review might recommend). However, the conclusions could still be useful for other regional and district councils, especially those at the early stages of undertaking assessments.

The content of this report includes:

  1. Attendees
  2. Report purpose
  3. Background
  4. Workshop purpose
  5. Introduction to Marlborough's natural character
  6. Overview of the Marlborough assessment
    1. Assessment methods including definition, attributes, scale, ranking and describing outstanding natural character
    2. Overview comments on the MDC study
  7. Other assessment methodologies
  8. Defining the coastal environment
    1. Agreements
    2. Follow-up actions
  9. Components of natural character
    1. Follow-up actions
  10. Assessing and evaluating experiential attributes
  11. Outstanding natural character
    1. Follow-up actions
  12. Mapping
    1. Follow-up actions
  13. Looking forward—points of agreement
    1. Coastal environment identification and mapping
    2. Natural character components
    3. Natural character mapping
    4. Broader conclusions about the workshop process
  14. Closing round from participants
  15. References

Publication information

Published by Department of Conservation

Contact

Whare Kaupapa Atawhai / Conservation House Head Office
Phone:   0800 275 362
Fax:   +64 4 471 1117
Email:   info@doc.govt.nz
Address:   18 Manners Street
Wellington 6011
Postal Address:   PO Box 10420
Wellington 6140
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