Bayside Stormwater Reserve

Increasing environmental awareness of a local area through community involvement and ownership

Bayside Reserve, a North Shore City Council and Boffa Miskell led stormwater management project included improving water quality and flood management, enhancing ecological and amenity values in the stream and reserve, and facilitating community use and appreciation of the reserve and stream.

Bayside Reseve had a stormwater concrete stream channel which flowed into a detention pond. The pond, which was overlooked by Browns Bay residents, had silted up and was not functioning as intended.

“We saw the opportunity to extend what could have been a routine maintenance project into a demonstration project for sustainable design,” says Boffa Miskell project leader and landscape architect, Mark Lewis. “It became a multi-faceted approach to stormwater design in line with NSCC’s sustainable stormwater strategy.”

The existing concrete stream channel was transformed into a naturalised stream, and the pond was reformed with forebays and vegetated floating islands, to enhance its water treatment function. Public walkways were constructed, aligned with maintenance access.

Habitat has been enhanced through non-spray weed control and diverse planting, including kahikatea-swamp maire and flaxcabbage tree communities.

“An essential aspect to the project was the level of positive community engagement that the North Shore City Council achieved through their consultation programme,” Mark says. “That, too, was one of the objectives – to create a sense of community involvement and ownership with increased environmental awareness in the local area.”

Our role

Landscape architecture and low impact design.

The facts

Client	Auckland Council (North Shore Council)
Project team	Eddie Sides Mark Lewis
Worked with	Dempsey and Wood Civil
Project date	2010
Awards	Arthur Mead Environmental Award 2010 - New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects’ 2010 Resene Pride of Place Awards Bronze Award in the Landscape Design – Rural/Park/Recreational Category of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects’ 2010 Resene Pride of Place Awards