Watching it disappear while being told to get over it and move away.
Three metres. That was all that separated Sheryl Martin's two-storey home from the edge of a crumbling bank at Port Waikato — and for a while, the official advice was simply to knock it down.
Martin and her husband Gordon didn't knock it down. Neither did their neighbours pack up and leave. Instead, the community at this small coastal settlement south of Auckland did something that took three years of grinding bureaucratic resistance to accomplish: they built their own seawall. It is 366 metres long, 1.3 metres high, and it cost $400,000 — every dollar of it raised and spent by the people who live there.
The wall has now been standing for eight weeks. To look at it is to understand something about what communities can do when they decide that the alternative — watching the sea take their homes while officials suggest they simply relocate — is not acceptable. Malcolm Beattie, chair of the Sunset Beach Surf Lifesaving Trust, which led the project, is careful about how he frames the victory. "This is not the case of the big boys running us down," he said. "We're going to do it the right way, the decent way."
Getting there was anything but decent, by his account. The trust spent three years pushing for resource consent, and for much of that time the pushback from Waikato District Council was relentless. A senior consenter, Beattie says, "completely obstructed" the project for more than a year — a period during which residents watched the shoreline continue to retreat in real time, funding the effort out of their own pockets all the while. The council declined to be interviewed but issued a statement noting that an independent commissioner was eventually brought in to determine consent, and describing the seawall as a community-led initiative to protect dunes, public spaces, and nearby homes.
For Beattie, that framing — community-led — is accurate, but it papers over the years of hoops he says lacked integrity. "We were just standing here watching it disappear and people telling us 'well, get over it, move away.'" They didn't move away. They stayed and built.
For Martin, the result is both practical and profound. "Well, it means saving the house, doesn't it?" she said. She and Gordon had been told to demolish the building before the bank took it. Instead, they moved it back from the edge. Now, with the wall in place, she talks about living there for the rest of her life — until, as she puts it, something medical makes that impossible.
The trust isn't finished. A new walkway to maintain beach access for residents and surf lifesavers is already underway — again community-funded, again built after being told it wasn't feasible. Beattie is cheerfully unapologetic about the pace at which they've moved. "I think we've broken the law but to hell with it, you know, put me in jail. We just decided to do it." The walkway, he says, is all part of the same project, and the results speak for themselves. "The locals are over the moon about it and they see that they can have a little bit of pride back there."
The real test hasn't arrived yet. Winter storms are coming, and in September a king tide forecast at 4.3 metres is expected to hit the coast. Beattie knows what that means for the wall. "We know all the elements are gonna hit us about that date and it's going to be 'hold on to your seat.'" If the structure survives, he says, they'll know they've truly achieved something.
Looking further out, the trust has secured a 25-year consent from Waikato Regional Council for ongoing sand management — a commitment that will cost around $60,000 a year. Beattie is unbothered by the figure. "They spend more on toilet paper," he said. Any future extension of the seawall itself would require a fresh round of consenting, the district council noted. For now, Port Waikato is watching the horizon and waiting for September.
Notable Quotes
That three years was just total push back by council — they put us through hoops that I think were unacceptable and lacked integrity.— Malcolm Beattie, Sunset Beach Surf Lifesaving Trust chair
Well, it means saving the house, doesn't it?— Sheryl Martin, Port Waikato resident
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What actually makes this story more than just a local infrastructure project?
It's a story about who gets to decide when a place is worth saving. The official answer, for years, was that it wasn't.
And the community just... disagreed?
Loudly. They raised $400,000 among themselves, fought through three years of council resistance, and built the thing anyway.
What was the council's objection?
That's not entirely clear from the record. Beattie describes a senior consenter who obstructed the project for over a year. The council's own statement is careful — it talks about process, about an independent commissioner, about community leadership. It doesn't engage with the accusation of obstruction.
So the community won, but the council is framing it as a partnership?
More or less. Which is its own kind of frustration if you spent three years being told no.
What's at stake for the people who live there?
Their homes, literally. Sheryl Martin's house was three metres from the eroding bank. She was told to demolish it. She didn't.
And now she's planning to live there for the rest of her life?
That's what she said. Until something medical stops her. There's a quiet defiance in that.
The September king tide — is that the real verdict on all of this?
Beattie thinks so. A 4.3-metre tide, winter storms bearing down — if the wall holds through that, he says they've proved their point. If it doesn't, the argument starts over.