Peri-urban land use: A paper prepared for the New Zealand Land Use Advisory Council

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the issues and problems of regulating and guiding land use in the peri-urban area. The various land uses are considered, as are traditional views of the problems, and the statutory means of control. The principal findings are that the issues are both deeper and more complex than traditionally thought, and that existing land use control procedures are generally not reflecting this complexity. It is observed that the peri-urban area is very important to the well-being of both the urban area and the rural area, and that continuation of simplistic approaches to control will damage social and economic systems, and increase the chances of irreversible undesirable changes in land use, particularly on high quality soils.