The main challenges facing our communities, that helped shape the 4 futures.

Landscapes, Open Space and Biodiversity

• Our district boasts beautiful landscapes and coastlines that must be protected but many are privately owned and at the moment you can have development within some of them. How should we manage them?
• Other open space, such as farms, forestry and even the sea, will come under pressure as our economy grows. What commercial and industrial activity is appropriate, while minimising the impact on these areas?
• Most Maori land lies in coastal and rural areas, where development is often restricted. This puts financial and social pressures on Maori communities wanting to provide affordable housing. How can Maori communities provide homes and settlements (papakainga) to accommodate the growing number of urban Maori keen to return to their lands?
• Our district has a rich plant and animal life and many beautiful natural environments, on land, in harbours and along the coast.

How do we manage development and tourism to protect and enhance these treasures?

The Department of Conservation is currently preparing a draft Conservation
 Management Strategy (CMS) for the Waikato.

An information day on the document will be held in Thames on Wednesday 2
April, 2-6pm.  Thames Civic Centre, 200 Mary St, Thames.

The department will be producing a notified draft CMS in early May.  This
 document will be available for statutory consultation for a period of two
months and subsequent hearings for those people who wish to be heard.

The DoC website - www.doc.govt.nz has details of the process and the email
address to receive feedback - waikatocms@doc.govt.nz
Feedback from the Blueprint consultation process will also feed into this
work.

The Character of Our District

• The peninsula is an expensive place to live and buy a house, our population is aging and there is even more demand for holiday homes. Yet we need or want health, transport and recreational and other services. Should we, and if so, how should we grow our permanent population to support these services?
• Our district has many small towns with their own unique character and sense of place; their natural backdrops, beaches, harbours, biodiversity and history.

How do we manage our development and still be able to protect the character of our place including the clean water and healthy harbours?

Natural Hazards

• Councils must manage land use to avoid natural hazards like floods and erosion, which climate change will only intensify.

How do we manage new development to prevent or minimize these hazards?

Economy and Infrastructure

• We need a more diverse economy to balance the tourism industry. Should industrial/commercial land be near main centres or spread around
  the peninsula?
• Providing our many communities with water, roads, sewerage and stormwater systems, power and broadband is challenging and expensive.

Is the lack of it limiting economic growth? How do we encourage private suppliers to invest in infrastructure on the peninsula?