Land Use Recovery Plan

26 Mar 13

A preliminary draft of the Land Use Recovery Plan, identifying the direction for residential and business development in greater Christchurch for the next 10 – 15 years, has been released.

The Recovery Plan was prepared at the direction of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and is open for public comment until 22 April. Following public consultation a final draft Recovery Plan will be provided to the Minister for his consideration.

Identification of development location

The Recovery Plan seeks to provide a clear, co-ordinated land use plan for recovery by identifying locations for future development. Priority areas for residential development, including areas already zoned but not yet developed and new areas at Halswell, Belfast and Rangiora. In total the Recovery Plan provides for 30,600 sections by 2016 and 42,600 sections by 2028. Priority areas for business development include new areas at Rolleston, Belfast and in the vicinity of the Christchurch International Airport. Development outside of existing urban areas or identified priority areas will be restricted to limited rural-residential development. Delivery of infrastructure will be aligned with the priority areas identified.

The location of residential and business land and the urban boundary is largely consistent with the previous Proposed Change 1 (PC1), which has been the subject of hearings and appeals since 2009. The Recovery Plan also establishes the location of the airport noise contours, which were in contention through the PC1 proceedings. The PC1 appeals are currently adjourned pending development of the Recovery Plan, but the content of the Recovery Plan is likely to make continuation of those proceedings redundant.

Recovery responses

The Recovery Plan also identifies a range of responses to assist earthquake recovery priorities including:

Land Use Responses

  1. Undertaking an independent review of regional and district plans and consenting processes to ensure they enable recovery, with the potential for reduced consenting and notification requirements.
  2. CERA facilitating, and intervening, to overcome market barriers to development, including collective solutions for comprehensive development.
  3. Co-ordination of information and advice services for rebuild activities, including land status, geotechnical information, pre-application advice and links to neighbouring land owners and developers.
  4. Planning and delivery of core infrastructure and services, including amendments to infrastructure programmes and financial plans to align with priority areas.

Housing Responses

  1. Increasing housing supply, by methods such as working with developers to ensure timing for the supply of sections to meet demand, and initiating exemplar projects for redevelopment on suitable government and council owned land.
  2. A number of methods to increase housing choice, including incentivising development in suitable areas, considering amendment to rating and development contribution policies, and preparing District Plan amendments that enable comprehensive development.
  3. Providing clear and comprehensive guidance on urban design considerations.

Business Responses

  1. Provision of sufficient business land, through preparation of outline development plans and appropriate zoning provisions, incentivising redevelopment of underutilised business land, and investigating comprehensive development planning for key activity centres and damaged business areas.
  2. Maintaining and enhancing access for key freight movements.

A full copy of the Recovery Plan is available here: www.developingchoices.org.nz

For further advice on the Recovery Plan contact Mark Christensen / Jen Crawford.