Coastline ownership

Why we monitor coastline ownership

This indicator measures the public and private ownership of the Waikato region’s coastline. The results are presented as privately owned, publicly owned or road edge (assumed public ownership), and have been split into the three main coastal regions – West Coast, West Coromandel and East Coromandel.

The coast is widely perceived as a public open space, which should be accessible to everyone. Public access is highlighted as a matter of national importance in the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS). Our Regional Coastal Policy Statement (RPS) andRegional Coastal Plan (RCP) emphasises that public access within the Coastal Marine Area (CMA) - along the foreshore and across the water - should not be unduly restricted. Access within the CMA is dependent largely on access to the coast being available. Public access to the coast (and other areas) relies on the provision of public areas such as access strips, walkways, reserves and conservation areas, or agreements with landowners. The presence of public coastal land can therefore be used to evaluate likely levels of public access, and the availability of highly valued coastal space.

Esplanade areas have a number of purposes including recreation, public access and conservation (including water quality and the mitigation of natural hazards). These purposes are outlined in section 229 of the Resource Management Act 1991.

What's happening?

Just under half (48 percent) of the entire Waikato region’s coastline is publicly owned. However the percentage of privately and publicly owned land differs greatly between the West Coast, West Coromandel, and East Coromandel.

On the West Coromandel Peninsula:

just under half (44 percent) of coastline in private ownership
there is a high percentage (25 percent) of road frontage, due to the steep landscape making inland roads impractical
residential development is concentrated adjacent to the coast, so there are many coastal margin reserves
there is relatively good public access from the road and reserves.

On the East Coromandel Peninsula:

69 percent of the coastline is in public ownership
much of the publicly owned coastal land is in the form of a narrow reserve, established during land subdivision.

On the West Coast of the Waikato region:

a large portion of the coastline is currently in farmland or forestry
the coastline is much less intensely developed than the Coromandel Peninsula
36 percent of the coastline is in public ownership (including roads)
a relatively small percentage of coastline is fronted by road reflecting the remote and relatively undeveloped nature of the Region’s West Coast.
the largely undeveloped nature of the coast makes public access to many parts difficult or impossible.

Methods - how we monitor

Monitoring sites
The coastline of the Waikato Region.
Monitoring frequency
Every 10 years.
Monitoring history
This is the second time the Waikato Regional Council has mapped the coastline ownership for the Region. The Core Record System (CRS) information used was current at June 2015. This information is purchased from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).
Future work could include investigating old records of coastal ownership to examine past trends.
Measurement technique
This indicator is measured solely through the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) using the CRS data and specific GIS tools and methods.
The process for generating this indicator is very GIS intensive. The following steps were undertaken in the GIS:
The process for generating this indicator is very GIS intensive. The following steps were undertaken in the GIS:
- From the Waikato Regional Council’s corporate GIS database, the shoreline (digitised from 2012 WRAPS photographs) was taken and split into three main regions – West Coast, West Coromandel Coast (to the point west of Port Jackson) and the East Coromandel Coast.
- A 100 m merged buffer was generated for each coastal region.
- For each coastal region:
  - Cadastral parcels from the CRS were found that intercepted or ‘touched’ the 100 m buffer around the coast. These are the coastal parcels.
  - Possible unique values for the PURPOSE_1 field of the CRS were analysed and grouped into publicly owned and privately owned.
  - The coastal parcels were then split into these groupings and merged based on this attribute.
  - The CRS_road GIS layer was also used to determine if a road edge met the coastline and this was attributed as a road edge.
- These parcel groupings were then used to split and attribute the coastline as either private, public or road.
- Once the three coastal regions had been captured with respect to public, private or road edge, the length of each segment was calculated using the GIS tools.
None relevant to this indicator.
The first dataset of coastal ownership (2002) was calculated using the shoreline derived from the 1:50,000 topographic dataset (the NZMS260 series map sheets). This shoreline was not always accurate, particularly in undeveloped areas on the West Coast. The latest update (2015) has utilised a recently completed shoreline that was mapped using 2012 orthorectified photographs and Lidar data. During data analysis it became clear that there will be some considerable differences in the 2012 output when compared with 2002, due simply to the differences in the mapped shoreline and the CRS. Any reporting of these differences would be misleading. This indicator therefore reports just the results of the most recent ownership analysis.
The reporting of "road" is based on road reserve parcels in the CRS. In some cases these areas are not formed roads.
This indicator has been compiled using the 2012 shoreline digitised from recent aerial photography and Lidar data. The definition of coastal ownership relates to the parcel ownership where it is intercepted by the 2012 shoreline. Therefore historical public reserves that have been eroded and are now seaward of the current shoreline are not included and the shoreline in these areas is classified as privately owned.
It is important to remember that this indicator measures shoreline ownership based on the ownership of the land directly adjacent to the shoreline, and is not a direct measure of shoreline accessibility. For example, in some areas, publicly owned reserve strips (e.g. road reserves) exist on the coastal margin in areas where they are disconnected from any road or pedestrian access. There are also areas of publicly owned land that are currently leased to private parties (e.g. forestry), so are not currently freely accessible to the public, but the potential remains for these areas to be made public in the future.
No changes are planned for this indicator.
The ownership data is sourced from the individual Territorial Authorities. The Waikato Regional Council does not maintain, update or amend any ownership details. However when errors are spotted, business processes are in place to raise these with the appropriate Territorial Authorities and their Valuation Service Provider (VSP) for correction.
The merging of the CRS and ownerhip data is a simple database join exercise. The relationship files used to match the CRS parcels to property valuation are created and maintained by Waikato Regional Council.
The process for generating this indicator is very GIS intensive. The following steps were undertaken in the GIS:
The process for generating this indicator is very GIS intensive. The following steps were undertaken in the GIS:
- From the Waikato Regional Council’s corporate GIS database, the shoreline (digitised from 2012 WRAPS photographs) was taken and split into three main regions – West Coast, West Coromandel Coast (to the point west of Port Jackson) and the East Coromandel Coast.
- A 100 m merged buffer was generated for each coastal region.
- For each coastal region:
  - Cadastral parcels from the CRS were found that intercepted or ‘touched’ the 100 m buffer around the coast. These are the coastal parcels.
  - Possible unique values for the PURPOSE_1 field of the CRS were analysed and grouped into publicly owned and privately owned.
  - The coastal parcels were then split into these groupings and merged based on this attribute.
  - The CRS_road GIS layer was also used to determine if a road edge met the coastline and this was attributed as a road edge.
- These parcel groupings were then used to split and attribute the coastline as either private, public or road.
- Once the three coastal regions had been captured with respect to public, private or road edge, the length of each segment was calculated using the GIS tools.