Whitby Lower Lake Reserve

Previous Next

Location

Suburb
Whitby

Primary Purpose of Reserve
Neighbourhood

Values & Outcomes

Historic shelterbelt (a few macrocarpas still evident).

50 A1 Amenity plantings. Wildlife – birds, eels.

Walking, feeding ducks, model boats, coarse fishing.

Landscape appreciation, open space.

Community use.

Play.

Whitby Library.

This is not a Crown Derived Reserve.

Amenity landscape.

Connections - to village centre and Whitby tennis courts.

Utilities (Important): Sewer, Stormwater.

• Zone map for Whitby Lower Lake Reserve

1. Manage the community and lake areas as two distinct zones (Community Zone (A) and Lake Zone (B)) within the reserve.
   
   
2. Improve the landscape relationship between buildings, open space and the lake, including maintaining views from community buildings to the lake, to encourage use and enjoyment of the reserve.
   
   
3. Encourage compatible multiple uses of the reserve for both casual and organised recreation.
   
   
4. Retain amenity landscape, and casual recreational opportunities for walking and informal play, and landscape appreciation.  Retain clear area where necessary to enable overland stormwater discharge and for maintenance access to the lake.  Encourage public access and landscape protection by formalising the carpark and discouraging cars from parking on the grass.
   
   
5. Contain, suppress or eradicate pest plants, and replace exotic plantings with eco-sourced native plants to protect the natural values of the reserve.
   
   
6. Monitor and maintain historic macrocarpas until removal is necessary due to senescence.
   
   
7. Improve amenity by monitoring and managing geese and other wild fowl.
   
   
8. Protect reserve-to-reserve, ecological, walking, and street-to-street connections.

Community Zone (A):

1. Encourage casual community use, recreation and ownership of the reserve, through enabling community uses of existing buildings, and by retaining easy access pathways, parking, play spaces and amenity open space.
   
   
2. Encourage multiple use of community facilities where practical to limit encroachment into open space.
   
   
3. Retain walking and visual connections between the reserve and the Whitby village centre.
   
   
4. Retain liquor ban.

Lake Zone (B):

1. Protect the natural values of the lake to improve ecological health, and to offer water-based recreation and amenity opportunities.
   
   
2. Protect the amenity vegetation in the riparian area of the reserve.
   
   
3. Retain recreation opportunities for coarse (catch and release) fishing of perch and tench in accordance with relevant legislation, model boats, feeding the ducks, and other informal non-contact water play.  Prohibit removal of fish from the reserve except in accordance with the management of nuisance aquatic plants.
   
   
4. Prohibit the introduction of additional fish to the lake, unless in accordance with existing agreements and legal requirements. Undertake eradication programmes as necessary for illegally liberated pest fish (such as rudd, koi carp, and gambusia), to improve ecological functioning of the lake and to prevent spread into Duck Creek or other water bodies.
   
   
5. Control nuisance aquatic plants (eg. oxygen weeds Lagarosiphon major and Egeria densa) and micro algae blooms, through the use of tightly controlled, contained and monitored grass carp, and by lowering the lake levels periodically for dredging and mechanical weed removal.  Monitor the effectiveness and impacts of grass carp in accordance with the procedures outlined in: Survey of macrophytes in Whitby Lake (Lower) Wellington (1999), and Operational Plan for the Introduction of Grass Carp and Silver Carp to Lower Whitby Lake (Decker Consultants Ltd, 2000).  Co-operate with Department of Conservation over management of carp, including notification of security failures or escapes.
   
   
6. Enable the lake levels to be lowered as necessary to allow for dredging and the mechanical removal of litter, vegetation and other debris.

Legal Description

Other information