Ahuriri Regional Park Draft Masterplan

This masterplan is a draft document that shows, in a visual way, the potential opportunities at Lagoon Farm. It highlights important features, like the stormwater treatment facilities (shown as wetlands on the masterplan), which are essential to move forward with. The masterplan has been shaped around the engineering requirements to locate the proposed Lagoon Farm treatment wetlands on the highest part of the Site to allow gravity fed flow through the wetlands. However, this plan is just a spatial starting point for other activities and is open to changes. We really want your feedback and suggestions to help us improve and refine the masterplan.

The document has been created with input from key stakeholders, including community groups, advocacy programs, local residents, and partner organisations. We value their input and look forward to working with the wider community to make this plan even better.

We recognise the key role of the Hawke's Bay Airport in providing our community with connection to the country. To ensure that the project is developed with considerations of the airports operational needs the project has been informed through a technical advisory group which includes members of the Hawke's Bay Airport and an avi-fauna specialist.  The purpose of the technical advisory group is to provide guardrails for the design options. Bird strike risk is a core matter consistently being considered for management methods as part of this project.

We recognise that there are some more high-risk species such as large Canada Goose and Kakīānau (Black Swan) are currently present in the wider environment. There are specific habitats that the project can avoid in creating to disincentivise these birds from being attracted to the park.

The project is utilising technical advice, bird count data and local knowledge to carefully design a space that transitions away from open pasture towards a well-managed environment minimising open spaces and large waterbodies. Design interventions include, but are not limited to:

• Minimising open water – the treatment wetlands are intended to be well vegetated to both discourage birds landing and enable water to be treated as it flows through
• Avoiding the creation of habitat nodes – creation of separate bird habitat nodes could lead to birds flying between areas
• Providing buffer plantings between vegetated water and pathways to deter birds moving from outside of the park into the space
• Locating human centric occupation outside of the flight path.