North Shore City Council says 1981 homes should be built at Long Bay, but Landco wants 1000 more. Photo / Greg Bowker

North Shore City Council says its controversial option for housing plans on the rural backdrop to Long Bay Regional Park will prevent harm to a site of national importance.

Giving evidence to the Environment Court yesterday, landscape architect Stephen Brown said the council's proposed framework for developing the greenfields site would protect outstanding landscapes and features.

However, the alternative plan put up by the major landowner, the developer Landco, would result in an "extensive and pervasive homogenising" of the landscape with significant loss of character. Mr Brown said experts agreed the Awaruku Ridge headland with its pre- European Maori landscape, a 19th century settler occupation landscape, and World War II gun emplacements "may in many ways be unique in New Zealand".

Landco's plans, however, would preserve only a small representative sample of the archaeological sites, with significant sites buried within land earmarked for suburban development.

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