He pikinga roto, he hikinga waka - A rising lake lifts all boats

The 100ha former Huntly East Mine site was purchased in 2017 by a local family who have owned the adjoining pastoral farmland on Kimihia Road since the 1980s. The site was purchased with the vision of developing it into a destination multi-purpose recreation, education and natural park facility based around a future freshwater lake formed by the filling coal mine pit.

This vision, referred to as the Kimihia Lakes Development Project, is intended to provide a social, environmental and economic legacy for the benefit of the Huntly community and wider region.

Boffa Miskell was brought into the project in late 2018 to provide assistance in the long-term planning and delivery of the project. This has been centred around the development of a site Masterplan: a landscape design-based document which collated the relevant site information and defined the range, scale and potential spatial arrangement of the project’s proposed activities.

Location

Waikato

Worked with

Lysaght

CKL

Strateg.Ease

Contaminated Site Investigation

Project date

2018 - ongoing

The Masterplan reflects the historical, cultural and environmental context of the site and has embedded a range of design principles which reflect the values of the client and the project team. In effectively capturing the vision for the project and providing a framework for this future development, the Masterplan has been an invaluable tool in assisting with stakeholder engagement and providing a platform for project funding applications.

In a separate workstream, Boffa Miskell’s ecology team has been critical in the on-going preparation of the extensive site rehabilitation programme, through the baseline assessments and the recommended environmental restoration activities to be programmed to align with the progressive filling of the lake; which is expected to take more than ten years.

With the site having an existing Rural zoning and Coal Mine Policy overlay, an efficient and effective planning framework was considered vital to provide certainty to support the long-term project vision.

Boffa Miskell’s planning team led the process to create the new Kimihia Lakes Zone (Special Purpose Zone within the National Planning Standards) with a comprehensive suite of bespoke provisions proposed to specifically provide for the project’s proposed activities, reflect the scale and characteristics of the site, and respond to concerns raised by submitters. A hearing for the new Kimihia Lakes Zone was held in early June 2021, with decisions on the Proposed Waikato District Plan expected later in the year.