Where to build, Where to protect? Rethinking urban growth in the Western Bay of Plenty Sub-Region.

ABSTRACT Urban expansion in (Aotearoa) New Zealand is reshaping the interface between rural and urban land, producing tensions between growth, resilience, and the protection of productive land and culturally significant landscapes. This research examines how growth in the Western Bay of Plenty Sub-region can be managed more strategically in response to land-use pressures and environmental constraints, and how such an approach can be adopted to support planning decisions in other areas across (Aotearoa) New Zealand. Focusing on the urban periphery of towns such as Te Puke, Maketū, and Pāpāmoa East, this study explores how housing demand, policy frameworks, and environmental limitations interact producing the loss of productive and ecologically valuable land. The Western Bay of Plenty Sub-region continues to experience rapid growth driven by internal migration, housing affordability pressures, and lifestyle demand. However, this expansion has contributed to fragmented urban periphery sprawl, encroaching on land with high productive and cultural value. While local authorities are adjusting to the ever changing environment and differing priorities as the government’s constantly shifting goals emerge, it can reveal inconsistencies between growth objectives and spatial outcomes at a local level. Using a mixed methods approach, the research combines analysis, policy evaluation, and semi structured interviews with planners, policy advisors, and geotechnical engineers. These methods inform the development of a prototype Implication Matrix, a tool designed to provide a uniform support decision making support tool. This matrix applies the logic of temporal exposure, consequence and likelihood of losing productive land and utilising the land's natural quality/structure and enhancing it. Applied to the case study areas of Te Puke, Pāpāmoa East, and Maketū, the matrix demonstrates how a consequence aware framework can reveal trade-offs before critical ecological, hydrological, or productive thresholds are compromised. These findings suggest that a decision support tool can improve the visibility of long-term risks within planning processes and support a more risk aware management if urban growth at the urban periphery across regions in (Aotearoa) New Zealand.