The Auckland Council are currently going through the process of documenting and finalising the Auckland Unitary Plan, which we have been working to have surfbreaks identified and included to enable future protection and possibly monitoring.

One thing that might be a bit confusing to the public is “what is a Auckland Plan vs the Auckland Unitary Plan”?

The Auckland Plan is an upper level visionary document – it is the council’s overriding 30 year strategy aimed at turning Auckland into the world’s most liveable city. Surfbreak Protection has made submissions to get ‘surfing’ mentioned in the Auckland Plan.

The Auckland Unitary Plan will replace the existing district and regional plans and policies of the former city and district councils and regional council, with the exception of the recently approved Hauraki Gulf Islands District Plan.

The Auckland Unitary Plan is the rulebook for what you can do on your land and property and how we use the natural and physical resources of the region.

Hopefully, we end up with a map in the Auckland Unitary Plan that shows significant recreational areas with identified surfing areas. Work identifying and mapping the Auckland region surfbreaks was done by the the draft ARC plan but was suspended as the Auckland council were amalgamated.

Surfbreak protection has had discussions with Council and we are hopeful that the submissions made, including the ARC work, plus more recent work (such as the online surfbreak survey being run in Feb 2012 by the Council) will enable Auckland surfbreaks to be identified and protected in the Auckland Unitary Plan.