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Some West Coast landowners are reeling after receiving letters informing them of new legal planning rules affecting their land - leaving the Te Tai o Poutini Plan Committee scrambling today to respond.
Noise rules in the proposed Te Tai o Poutini Plan for the West Coast will be beefed up, and will include monitoring the Franz Josef Heliport.
Telling farmers to protect what they've been protecting for 100 years was never going to go down well. But it doesn't need to be a major imposition - if you have scale.
A West Coast farming family is happy to 'lock up' some land for posterity and the birds, but they sympathise with other farmers who are upset at the prospect of having parts of their land labelled SNA.
Farmers who agreed to protect native bush on their land 15 years ago should not have to go through the signifiant natural area process again, local leaders say.