Suggestions for a Solution

The Easy Option

The city councils are of the view that as all the infrastructure is already in place, the easy and least expensive option is to just tag new developments onto existing roads, water, sewage, waste water systems and power supplies that already exist on the Plains. This is irresponsible negligence by our elected councilors and deserves to be legally challenged.

Elected people within the HDC council; one a recent senior councilor, the other a sitting councilor as well as a senior planner, have openly admitted that the HDC agenda is to continue urban creep across the Plains because all the infrastructure is in place. In other words, it’s the easier option and it’s cheaper…!! We consider this attitude to be very short sighted and the actions of a negligent and irresponsible authority, in light of urban process and financial gain by way of rates.

Developing on unproductive land is expensive but by incentivizing and encouraging developers to move to these areas, this is a short term investment worth making when one considers the long term investment in saving our most precious asset forever.

Suggestions for a Solution

So what we suggest is to move urban development off the fertile soils of the Heretaunga Plains. We believe the way forward is:

1. Build up instead of out on existing urban land. There is a drive for apartment development above existing inner city shopping areas, however the compliance issues make the feasibility of encouraging this initiative very difficult. Short cutting these expensive compliance issues needs to be seriously looked at to incentivize investors to encourage this inner city living. Another “up and not out” regulation that needs to be pursued is all existing consented areas need to be multistoried. No building consent should be issued to single storied buildings on the Heretaunga Plains from now on. We can house many more people on smaller areas than the existing rules allow. Do we want to be likened to Tauranga?

2. Be creative and develop subdivisions on unproductive soils instead of fertile soils. Surrounding the Heretaunga Plains are unproductive hills which are virtually untouched. It is more expensive to develop urban living on these hills which does put developers off investing in these areas. The risk is too high. The HDC, NCC and HBRC need to embrace and support enterprising and innovative development that is not taking place on “stolen” high yielding agricultural land. However, with some creative incentives from councils to encourage investors in these areas, more subdivisions could be developed to take advantage of this huge undeveloped resource. Such as:

• Drop the Development Contributions forced upon developers and add this tax onto the new property owners.

• Make it easier to get Resource Consent and simplify the Resource Management Act to develop subdivisions on unproductive land off the Heretaunga Plains. This includes our systems and rules that make it difficult to change existing zoned areas.

3. Create new and exciting satellite subdivisions that will turn into villages and eventually towns on unproductive land surrounding our two main cities. Examples are:

• Te Awanga and Haumoana. This has started and a very popular place to live. More encouragement from councils needs to be promoted rather than objected to such as the case on unproductive land on Raymond Road.

• Maraekakaho. A wonderful settlement has started here and should be encouraged to expand.

• The Havelock Hills, off Middle Road south of Havelock North. A 400 residential subdivision has currently got resource consent, however thought needs to given to developing infrastructure to sustain this huge development, plus the much more potential development in the area, such as improved roading, a new school, shopping area and parks.

• More of the hills around and beyond the Heretaunga Plains. See map.

• Waimarama is also a very popular coastal community that is restricted for expansion by zoning issues on the surrounding hills.