Rotorua City lakefront : A study of the recreational use of the city foreshore, describing and analysing the recreational opportunities and the natural resource values and proposing management strategies compatible with those opportunities and values : this study [dissertation] is submitted in fulfilment of a part-requirement for the Diploma in Parks and Recreation [Lincoln College]

Abstract

Concern for the appearance and usefulness of Rotorua City's lake frontage has occupied the minds of Government and local people since early this century, with opinions ranging the full spectrum from full development of its potential in the form of commercial and tourism-orientated facilities to the provision of green open space for passive recreational use. With control of the undeveloped eastern section of lakeshore recently placed in the hands of the Rotorua District Council, there is now the chance to manage the entire northern lake front­age of the city as a discrete recreational area. It is therefore an opportune time to carry out a study of this recreational resource, with its intensively managed urban parkland to the west, and the wide expanses of golf course and the undeveloped lake margins to the east. Through identifying the natural resource values of the area, and the various recreational opportunities afforded, the study aims to provide a framework for recreation management that is compatible with natural values as well as capable of extracting their maximum recreational potential. The study focuses on the immediate foreshore, the interface between the lake proper and the reserve areas fronting it and the recrea­tional setting this provides. It describes the recreation resource in its historical, cultural, and administrative context, analyses the impact of current and projected recreational use upon it, identifies the major issues arising from this, and advocates guide­lines for future development.