Council Confirm Removal of Mana Whenua Overlay
10 AUGUST 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
After 18 months of hard work by hundreds of members and supporters, Democracy Action is celebrating Auckland Council’s
decision to accept the recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel to remove all of the Mana Whenua provisions
from Auckland’s Unitary Plan.
Democracy Action’s Chairman, Lee Short, who was at today’s Council meeting, says, “The Council has rejected the
recommendation from officials to keep the Mana Whenua overlay. That means sites of cultural significance will need to be
properly verified before they are included in future overlays.”
“Democracy Action’s volunteers have spent thousands of hours working for this result – including visiting hundreds of
the sites the Council had claimed were significant. The Council never bothered to check the sites, and we exposed that
the Mana Whenua overlay was protecting sites including an old rubbish dump, an industrial storage site and even a
subdivision.”
Earlier this afternoon the Council accepted the recommendation to remove the controversial “Cultural Impact Assessment”
requirements, which officials agreed with the Hearings Panel should be removed from the Unitary Plan.
“Common sense has prevailed,” says Mr Short.