St Clair is a leafy residential suburb of Dunedin, New Zealand. It is located on the Pacific Ocean coast five kilometres from the city centre on the southwesternmost part of the coastal plain which makes up the southern part of the urban area, and also climbs the slopes of Forbury Hill immediately to the west of this plain. St Clair's 2001 population was 4,179.
Geography
St Clair's main geographical features are St Clair Beach and the promontory of Forbury Hill, which rises above the plain. The summit of the hill lies within the grounds of St Clair Golf Course, in the west of the suburb.
Forbury Hill's flanks include a large cliff face one kilometre inland from the beach and a rocky headland which juts into the Pacific Ocean. The small outcrop of White Island lies to the immediate south of St Clair beach. The inland cliff, which runs parallel with and to the west of Forbury Road, was the site of a quarry in the early days of the city. The city's largest retirement village and its only meetinghouse for the LDS Church both lie in the shadow of this cliff.
A small stream runs from the flank of Forbury Hill, passing into a culvert before reaching the sea at the western end of St Clair Beach. Bedford Street, a main thoroughfare from the flat part of the suburb to its hillier parts, follows the steep valley of this stream for much of its short length.
The suburb is surrounded by the suburbs of Corstorphine, Kew, Forbury, and St Kilda. Its main roads are Forbury Road, Bedford Street, Bay View Road, Ravenswood Road, and Allandale Road, with a small shopping area close to the junction of Allandale and Forbury Roads. Victoria Road, which begins at the edge of the suburb, also links it with St. Kilda. An esplanade runs along the coast from the southern end of Forbury Road (where it joins Bedford Street and Victoria Road), and is the site of several restaurants and cafes.
St Clair Beach and Second Beach
St Clair Beach is the suburb's most well-known feature. It is the western end of the long beach (Ocean Beach) which stretches along the city's southern shore, and is a popular surfing venue, regularly hosting national and South Island surfing championships. The beach at St Clair is backed by sea wall, behind which is an esplanade consisting of pedestrian walkway and a one-way street. The eastern end of the esplanade leads onto a pathway across the dunes which run along the back of the beach a far as St Kilda.
The beach and the dunes are often the victims of erosion if weather patterns see series of storms hit the city from the south. Such erosion between 2002 and 2007 saw emergency measures taken to add sand to the dunes in 2007 and 2008. Further erosion in 2013–2015 encroached on the dunes to the extent that a public footpath inland from the top of the dunes was permanently closed. The erosion is a long-term ongoing concern, as evidenced by attempts at beach protecting begun in 1904 which saw the addition of sturdy wooden piles and sandbreaks to the beach. The last surviving sets of wooden posts from these efforts were a landmark of St Clair Beach, often seen as being the dividing line between St Clair and Middle Beaches. Heavy storms during the winter of 2015 left these posts in a poor condition, and the last of the posts was washed awat by 2021. Remedial work has to be frequently undertaken to shore up the dunes, and there is considerable local concern about the long-term viability of the residential area behind them. The presence of an old landfill immediately behind the dunes exacerbates the potential environmental problems from the erosion.