As we sink deeper into debt with the rest of the world, more of our productive assets such as dairy farms will be sold. Ironically, in seeking to own the expensive roofs over our heads we increase the risk of becoming tenants in our own country. –Peter Lyons
Peter Lyons does another ripper opinion piece, this time on the inanities of the domestic housing market: Housing inflation distorts economy (ODT 12.4.12)
● Peter Lyons teaches economics at Saint Peters College in Epsom and has written several economic texts.
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The housing market is mostly driven by short-sighted sharks who clip the ticket without wider conscience for community or sustainable land use. Sprawl is written on their foreheads in ‘capital’ letters.
We have our own pack version based in Dunedin. Their efforts severely blot the Central Otago landscape. Now they’re ripping into Mosgiel.
The latest subdivisions (for sale) on the Taieri resemble every substandard example seeded at Wanaka district … a lowbrow microcosm of the scourge of dormitory suburbs that sweep the world, starting close by at Auckland. Luckily, we don’t have the population at Dunedin to extend too far, and we have too much local debt (a different sort of extension, why thanks DCC) ??
Who develops the sites? One is our buddy Cr Sydney Brown —tasteless, desperate or dim people buy them (the ‘flat sectioners’), even on a flood plain. Don’t they.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
http://www.landlords.co.nz/housing-statistics/?graphsubmitted=true&frommonth=1&fromyear=1994&tomonth=4&toyear=2012&graphareas%5B%5D=123&graphstyle=combo&submit=Show+Graph
Mon, 16/04/2012 – 8:06pm. farsighted Blunt
http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/otago/205392/property-values-still-increasing-south#comment-29175
Go for a drive around central Otago and the lower south Canterbury areas if you want to see tasteless. (Yes I did see the ad’s on tv for the Mosgiel thing) Ida Valley has the pleasure of its very own dairy farm soon (construction is underway now).
It seems we aren’t going to be happy till we’ve made a total mess of this country. I wonder who we’ll blame?…..
New dwelling figures rise as more choose to build
http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/otago/205702/new-dwelling-figures-rise-more-choose-build
More people in Dunedin and the Queenstown-Lakes area are choosing to build new homes, local authority figures show. […] Real Estate Institute of New Zealand Central Otago Lakes spokesman Kelvin Collins said section prices in the Lakes District had dropped to the point where building a new home was a viable option for more people.
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South could hurt as Chch rebuilds
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/205670/south-could-hurt-chch-rebuilds
Competition for construction projects to rebuild Christchurch could come at the expense of opportunities for some Otago-Southland businesses. The BNZ and Business New Zealand performance of services index (PSI) for March shows Canterbury in very positive expansion mode at more than 65 points, while Otago Southland languishes at 49.3.
### ODT Online Mon, 23 Apr 2012
Mosgiel buyers snap up sections
By Chris Morris
Mosgiel buyers seeking sections to build on appear to have made their move, with locals accounting for the majority of more than $5 million in sales at the HeathField subdivision. Willowridge Developments, headed by developer Allan Dippie, confirmed yesterday it had concluded sales and purchase agreements with buyers for 43 of the 45 sections, with sales worth $5.58 million.
Read more
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### ODT Online Mon, 23 Apr 2012
24-lot subdivision planned at Outram; plan change sought
By Chris Morris
Developers behind a proposed 24-lot subdivision at Outram – incorporating the historic Balmoral homestead – are seeking to change the Dunedin City Council’s district plan to allow the development. Balmoral Developments (Outram) Ltd and adjoining landowners have applied to the council for a private plan change to allow 24 homes on 6.7ha of rural land, spread over two titles near State Highway 87, Holyhead [St] and Mountfort St. About 6.3ha of the land was owned by the company, headed by directors Cathrine and Neville Ferguson, of Omarama, Companies Office records showed. The rest of the land was owned by Roger and Michelle Capil, who had joined the company in making the private plan change request.
Read more
{wirehunt is correct: Holyhead St. -Eds}
On that 24 lot subdivision I wonder if them using the wrong name will fail the consent? Holyhead STREET not road. Or just bad reporting?
It can be a very wet hole in there (note how high the houses are).
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{Presumably a typo by ODT, DCC webmaps show it is a street. -Eds}
### ODT Online Wed, 25 Apr 2012
Plan-change request to be notified
By Chris Morris
Two landowners who want a change to Dunedin’s district plan to allow their proposed 24-lot subdivision at Outram have cleared the first hurdle. Councillors at yesterday’s Dunedin City Council planning and environment committee meeting voted to accept for processing the private plan-change request made by Balmoral Developments (Outram) Ltd and adjoining landowners Roger and Michelle Capil. The landowners wanted to rezone 6.7ha of rural land as residential 6, which would allow residential homes to be developed on lots of 2000sq m or greater. However, councillors and staff at yesterday’s meeting emphasised the decision to accept the request for processing was procedural, and not an indication of the merits of the proposal.
Read more
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Report – PEC – 24/04/2012 (PDF, 940.4 KB)
DIS 2011-5: Holyhead Street, Outram – Private Plan Change Request
I’m not sure that a zoning change is the biggest problem for those people. The area in question has no sewerage reticulation, and DCC has clearly stated on a number of occasions that it has no intention of increasing the network in that area. Which means septic tanks. However, the ORC has been equally clear in saying that the high water table and the increasing population density means that they won’t be approving further requests to install septic tanks around Outram.
The issue around who controls septic tanks needs to be tightened up. Currently ORC issues consents, but does no inspections. DCC does inspections, but not of the septic tank as that’s ORC’s problem. Messy, in more than one way.
To allow this kind of development, yet further out from Mosgiel, would make a mockery of the council’s intent, as I understand it, to contain urban sprawl, would it not?
It’s a continuing nightmare. The horse following the cart again. Let’s say that they approve a 24 lot subdivision, and 24 families move in. Now you’ve got 40 extra cars driving through Outram twice a day. You’ve got 40 kids needing to go to school. An entire infrastructure suddenly needs to change and go in a previously unplanned route in order to fix a created problem. The planning rules are “supposedly” in place to ensure that development and infrastructure work together. In developed countries, it’s the local authority who dictates, and leads the way, in subdivision development. They don’t run behind, trying to plug leaks with tape. There’s no “planning” in City Planning.
City Planning, in the guise of City Development Team, are too busy on their warehouse project (oh wow, new over-priced apartments and offices, and MORE coffee shops) and research into lil’ city centres’ ‘amenity upgrades’, because that’s what they do. Belatedly perhaps in the case of suburban centres/activity zones, by 10-20-30 years.
Report – PEC – 24/04/2012 (PDF, 116.3 KB)
City Amenity Upgrades – Centres Programme Progress Report
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Your progressive Council speaking…
### ch9.co.nz April 24, 2012 – 5:52pm
Committee votes in favour of changes
The Dunedin City Council Planning and Environment committee voted today in favour of proposed changes to many of the city’s suburban centres.
Video
If “amenity upgrades” means easily found public toilets I’m all for them. If it means rinky-dink “decor” and tiles for people to trip over…… No I’m not going to look at the proposals for myself, I’ve got enough to be grumpy about already thanks.
I’m thinking more like long years of neglect of the suburban shopping centres until all that’s left is ‘bring in the transportation planners/consultants/Beca and do your damnedest’. Don’t forget the protrusions. Add heaps of new parking meters to pay for the stadium. Put the scaffolding up to paint the shop facades via a council incentive scheme, then have the Building Inspector declare the historic buildings ‘unsafe’ and chuck the tenants out; the building owners move to demolition (allowed even if the facades are protected in the District Plan) to create more carparks! Very simple really. This is what passes as Urban Design at DCC these days. At least it provides “certainty” to developers.
[SATIRE]
Satire? You sure? Looks more like years of observation to me.
And don’t get me started on protrusions. Designer bunions, a goddamn pain whatever you call them.
I have always taken it that protrusions are a traffic calming tool to slow cars down in areas where there are more pedestrians. Widening pavements and perhaps utilising protrusions allows for more trees and street beautification, especially where there are verandahs extending out from shops.I personally wouldn’t object to these measures for achieving these desirable effects.
Likewise having two ways streets may have merit. Imagine the effect, in reverse, of turning the main street of South Dunedin into a one way traffic system. It would speed up traffic and effectively kill any attempt to revive that area given the damage already created by big box shop development elsewhere.
We are talking about a small city where getting from A to B in a hurry is not a big problem.
Getting from A to B in a hurry is the same wherever you are, when you’re in a hurry. Even living in a hamlet does not eliminate the need to get on with something as quickly as possible.
There are advantages in living in a big city – more cultural choices and more employment niches some of which are highly paid. Middlemarch ain’t London. Both ways, good and bad, and according to taste. There is not much point in saying to Dunedin people, well if you lived in Auckland/London it would take you x times as long to get to your office / the museum / rugby! Here you can live in a bigger house with a bigger garden for the same money, you have more quiet spaces within a reasonable walk or a very short drive, you can enjoy the beach without overhearing anyone else’s conversations coming at you in both ears. If you want to go to the theatre there are fewer choices than in a major city but you’ll probably be able to get a ticket – for starters – and it won’t take hours getting there and then home afterwards.
So why should we take the attitude that making town journeys slow and inconvenient is OK just because they’re not as bad as places that have those other advantages? Small towns are a package, as are big ones. The good things and the irritations of each come wrapped up like a parcel. Wrapping a disadvantage from one in with the other’s parcel doesn’t look good to me.
That said, there are places for one-way streets and places they’d be silly e.g. South Dunedin’s main street. Protrusions make it harder to get in and out of parking spaces without sharp turns out into traffic. It’s not easy to see (well, not from my vehicle) the edges of the protrusions, unlike the height of another vehicle. They make faux-crossings on which pedestrians do not actually have the rights some of them assume are the same as on pedestrian crossings i.e. they are confusing. When this is exacerbated by outbreaks of tiles it encourages impulsive road-crossing without, as marked pedestrian crossings do, giving an equal signal to drivers – because it’s NOT a crossing, it’s designer streetscapery.
Street protrusions are not something I personally get hot under the collar with.
If I am in a hurry, which isn’t that often, I avoid certain busier streets. If I can’t avoid those streets, I live with the inconvenience and reality of owning and driving a car. We share the road with others – pedestrians and cyclists. I know some people get annoyed having to negotiate around both – not just when they are in a hurry – but this is unreasonable.
The thoing that annoys me about street protrusions is that extra money has been spent to stuff around with a perfectly good street by adding designer bunions. If they can’t just save the money i.e. keep debt from rising, then let them spend it on useful things. Lighting in dark places people have to walk. Toilets open 24/4 – the hours people’s bladders and bowels are in action. Seats for the lame and the weary.
Oops – thing not thoing, 24/7 not 24/4. Typos not typhoons, probably.
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{We enjoy the animation. -Eds}
Dunnies for Dunners could be a money maker. In Europe they charge one euro for a pee. Given that we are in debt and the call of nature captures a wide audience, who knows, our debt could disappear just like that!
That’s a good idea Peter, and we could put portraits of those who had generated the debt that was being paid for by the piddle onto the porcelain for a delicious exercise in role reversal.
Cyclists are something I get hot under the collar about, Peter. They pay nothing towards roading as cyclists, then don’t use cycleways etc that the rest of us have paid for to keep them safe, and not cheap either I might add.
I’m of the opinion if they’re on the righthand side of a white line and there’s a cycle lane then they’re fair game.
But then I’m from Outram and have to deal with the so and so’s all the time. Hope I don’t snap one day….
### ODT Online Tue, 19 Jun 2012
Plans for more than 50 sections in Outram
By Chris Morris
The village of Outram could be in for a growth spurt, with landowners eyeing separate plans that could together add more than 50 houses to an expanded urban area. However, both projects will first have to make it through the Dunedin City Council’s private plan change process, involving public submissions and a hearing, before their fates are decided later this year.
Read more
I love the porcelain portraits idea, Rob. A new hobby. Spend all day in town drinking coffee and glasses of water, thereby having a slash every time nature calls!
Wirehunt. You strike me as a Four Wheel Drive kind of guy! Am I right? My unsolicited advice? Breathe through your nose.
This being the 21st century, the above comment is actionable.
### ODT Online Fri, 27 Apr 2012
Six suburbs need ‘intensive’ work
Six Dunedin suburbs need “intensive revitalisation”, a detailed study of the city’s amenities says. The Dunedin City Council’s City Amenities Centres Programme progress report was prepared by Emma O’Neill, the council’s urban design special projects manager. The report says major work and “intensive revitalisation” is needed in Caversham, Green Island, the Gardens, Port Chalmers, Mornington and Mosgiel.
Read more
### ODT Online Mon, 7 May 2012
Sections near Mosgiel hard to sell
By Chris Morris
A lack of interested buyers for 15 residential sections at Wingatui shows demand for new real estate remains fragile, a developer says. The Silver Springs development stage three sections near Mosgiel were offered at an open auction held at the Wingatui Racecourse yesterday. About 70 potential buyers turned out for the auction but only two sections sold, for $135,000 and $190,000, Silver Springs director Dennis Brown said afterwards.
Read more
Oh. The 100% mortgage needs paying, and you had no REAL money to clean up and insulate your property in the first place (nor any intention), so no-one moved in. The rent you wanted to charge was shark-like, just like you planned. Pity the student incomes you suck on (care of the government) have not met your personal demands. SELL (says your bank, or else).
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### ODT Online Mon, 7 May 2012
Student flats selling fast
By Allison Rudd
More North Dunedin student flats than usual have been placed on the market this year. The lift has been partly fuelled by landlords whose flats have remained vacant for months longer than expected, but real estate agents say such is the demand for campus investment properties, well-priced rentals are being snapped up by buyers.
Read more
### ODT Online Thu, 10 May 2012
Land cleared for village
By Allison Rudd
Work began this week on Dunedin’s newest retirement village. Summerset at Bishopscourt, on a 1.9ha residentially-zoned site behind Shetland and Chapman Sts, in Kaikorai, is a $60 million development. Its construction to be staged over seven years. Earthworks have started, construction of the first 30 townhouses was due to start before the end of the month and the first residents were expected to be in their new homes by the end of the year, Summerset Group chief executive officer Norah Barlow said. The village gained Dunedin City Council resource consent last year, but Summerset has applied to vary the consent, partly in response to neighbours’ concerns about the bulk and height of two large buildings approved last year.
Read more
This will be of help to Councillor Sydney Brown. All $1.1 million of advantage. But he left the room. Dave Cull’s right hand man.
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### ODT Online Thu, 17 May 2012
DCC cuts development contributions
By Allison Rudd
Those developing new residential sections in Mosgiel should pay less in development contributions, the Dunedin City Council has decided. Development contributions are cash payments or land vested with the council to help pay for the cost of infrastructure such as roads, intersection improvements, water and waste water reticulation services and reserves required when new subdivisions are opened up. The council had reviewed contributions and found the cost of infrastructure associated with the Mosgiel subdivisions was less than first calculated, economic policy analyst Hamish Orbell said. The subdivisions include the East Taieri, Factory Rd, Centre Rd, Wingatui Rd and Hagart Alexander Dr areas.
Read more
Woops. ODT blundered. It was suggested Cr Sydney Brown would benefit from $1.1m in reduced development contributions – in actual fact an increase has been approved for subdivisions in the Mosgiel East area where his land is sited. (page 35, ODT, 19.5.12)
I knew it would raise its head (pun intended) sooner or later. “Toilet Humour”. Isn’t it bad enough that the city is going down it, enough?
No 4X4 here Peter, unless you count the bike.
Why do I feel uneasy about this story? Do you? Am I missing something?
Uneasy is understatement.
Syddenly I’m feeling quite browned off.
Yes, “left the room” like Paul Hudson and the Hungry Frenchman. Funny how there are stories about the stadium councillors appearing to do well from decisions by council or its companies. All coincidence and above board, no doubt, but I still have a different way of looking at these circumstances (ref. morals).
I keep hoping the councillors will put down their Stakeholders’ Bible for a moment, start reading Morals for Dummies and have an epiphany that working for the best interests of Dunedin is different to looking after your own.
I welcomed the loosening of religion and social strata but the downside is showing. Some people need strong rules because they don’t have in-built moral and ethical structure. Whether “do the right thing because it’s right and Yahweh isn’t interested in empty show” or old Christianity “do right so you won’t go to hell” or aristocratic “noblesse oblige” – those of us who have fortunate lives have a duty to pay back to society – or social ambition “being elected to high office adds to one’s social stature and rewards one with respect, mana” there were better incentives back then than the tiny risk that an auditor or inquiry will place the consequences of dodgy actions on any individual’s shoulders. Shame? What’s that, some old-fashioned emotional process – really? How weird!
WTF?
Dunedin needs more sprawl?
Too few available sections already?
Too few houses for sale?
Doubleyou tee bloody eff?
Wanaka 2 – except this on verdant farm land (if managed) – with only ‘slight effects’, the developers consider.
I’ve never yet heard of a non-slight effect of any project, except when it’s the huge positive effect on jobs, prosperity, putting Dunedin on the map and other “visions” e.g. Fubar Stadium that turn out to be bullshit. As does the “slight [adverse] effect” also touted at the beginning.
Funny how nobody in the council / DCC has noticed this, after all these years.
When developers decide to fund their private plan changes, it’s up to us to supply and pay for effective opposition. Council planners and executive may well agree to oppose, in which case the council is a useful ally.
Maybe the DCC will do property speculation like the ORC did Jacks Point? Public money is a soft target for the rich to get richer. Bugger all private business has any to offer. So now just waiting for Stadium Councillor Syd Brown to pop up like a jack-in-the-box in this Outram business. Oh yessiree, in it for the best interests of the people and all that.
ODT editorial could’ve been written by Cr Brown or someone with something to gain:
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/214450/developing-rural-charm
The water table is already screwed out there. Let’s throw in another 50 septic tanks for good measure. Brainless idiots.
Then, finding the septic tanks are “unacceptable”, the community (those old Fubar suckers) has to pay for a sewerage system. What’s not OK about that, eh Developer, Councillors and DCC permanent staff?
Guess who has been granted 3 non-notified resource consents since 2007 on rural land on the south west edge of Mosgiel? One of the consents is for a cafe to cater for up to 60 persons plus retail activities. Is this a change to Mosgiel’s Commercial area into the rural zone by stealth of non-notified consents. Precedent setting for anybody to do as they like if they have the right contacts.
Is that the one at the garden place?
wirehunt and Tom – yes, it’s Wallis’s.
Younger members of my extended family who farm in the district tell me there’s, would you believe, family of Syd Brown involved. Dunedin is such a small place! Gee, there’s cousins and cousins: but namely, Syd and two of his cousins. Watch this space.
Off to do some checking on the rezoning history and who benefited (wink); and a look at the non notified consents. In the same glance, to see which city planners – under Mr Worthington, now with Ms Bidrose (holding pomp and circumstance of a doctorate in psychology, no less) over the top – sandwiched the ‘sprawl with amenity’ together, in the rural zone. Fascinating tales. How to improve the lot of the developers of the housing subdivisions.
DCC doesn’t give a damn about the rural constituency, it never has. Your deaf, dumb and blind council is fixated on the metropolitan. Or, when absolutely pushed (since nothing else is happening in the city) on those convenient little country places – care of Syd’s own pockets – that might put a spike in the number of new houses a tired council can report to New Zealand in a mockery of being ‘pro-development’. Let’s see, that’s about 500 new (overpriced) sections in the new Taieri sprawl areas. Questions: Who can afford to build? Why on arable land?
Not only sewerage issues, there are potable water issues (including contamination of bores, and things like DCC’s take from the bores being too large). A few facts to check here. Nevertheless, the rural locals are a great source of information. They’re keen to share what’s been happening! I need to talk to some of the older ratepayers too.
File all this under cumulative adverse effects, as natural resources are not sustainably managed, due to the greed of the grasping few. The picture will round.
Probably. The planners aren’t very bright, especially when they’re being sat on.
Gimme an address for each of those, if you can. Or rapid numbers, whatever pertains.
Pop goes the Sydney!
Next up stadium councillor Colin Weatherall will be reported as advising all is above board and nothing to see here. If it has the potential to affect voting in Syd’s ward, it may fall to back guy and stadium councillor Andrew Noone from Waikouaiti Ward.
It’s a beautiful thing Syd and Andrew have going. Neither ward can vote out the other when there’s meddling to be done each other’s backyard.
The unfortunate thing for the wider community though is that Mosgiel and Taieri Ward voters keep returning this dangerous councillor to power. They seem to like following dangled carrots, pipedreams and a lot of political puffery.
They really need to start asking themselves: What has he really done for our community? Because he’s certainly done well for himself. Council has been good to him.
Dunedin continues to suffer the consequences.
The reason those areas haven’t been built on? They are wet! Those are known sump areas, so let’s build houses on them, hell, DCC will get more rates so it’s gotta be good!!
Nothing like a spot of toxic mould and respiratory disease.
Yeah….
And 3 guesses what happens when the problems emerge.
A hint – “privatise profits, socialise losses”.
Maybe we should be restoring a ‘wetland’ here, rather than adding tarseal… Can’t wait to read the ‘environmental’ reports attached to the applications for the plan changes.
It’s a piece of self-important drivel alright. But we all know that any long-term concerns will be completely written off in favour of the short-term gains of Stakeholders. And a certain Stadium Councillor most likely. So what we’ve got here is more opportunity for consultancy fees, land sales and construction projects. Any land or infrastructure issues with the subdivisions will be someone else’s problems long after the Stadium Councillors have done their dirty and the Stakeholders left for Queenstown.
Given Christchurch is such a headache for most insurers, and matters there will take years and years to resolve, have to wonder how anybody’s insurance needs will be afforded or met in the context of bad housing subdivisions and developments elsewhere, in future.
Or maybe we’re now expert in staying above the problem.
A pretty picture, an English-style rural village at Outram – it seems, when you’re locked into daily existence at the Allied Press building, a veritable timewarp with little by way of internal office refurbishment on offer. A bit scrubby, as factories of the mind go.
And what happens next ? The ORC has to deal with flooding issues on land that was never designed to be built on in the first place. As mentioned above, did nobody stop to ask why that area has never been built on before ? One of the major contributing factors to the increased flooding issue out on the Taieri is the reduction in the amount of soak land and the concentration of rain water as a result. Every time someone builds a 20m long, 5m wide driveway up to their new lifestyle house, that’s 100m2 of natural rainwater absorption area which disappears. Together with another 200m2 under the footprint of the house and double garage. The rain which would have fallen on those 300m2 hasn’t disappeared, however. It still comes down and needs to go somewhere. It now has to share the nearest available soak ground with the rain that would normally fall on that free patch. The ground can’t absorb that extra 300m2 any faster, so the extra rain water has to sit on the surface, getting steadily deeper by the second. Sodden ground and septic tank soak lines ? Yummy.
Sustainable management means managing the use, development and protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate, which enables people and communities to provide for their social, economic and cultural wellbeing and for their health and safety while –
a. Sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources (excluding minerals) to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations; and
b. Safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil and ecosystems; and
c. Avoiding, remedying or mitigating any adverse effects of activities on the environment.
http://www.qualityplanning.org.nz/definitions/index.php
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Random paper. Place management philosophy…
Preserving Rural Land In Australia
Paper presented to Joint NZPI / RAPI National Congress
Wellington NZ, April 2002
Ian W. Sinclair
Principal Consultant, EDGE Land Planning
http://www.ruralplanning.com.au
Introduction
Australia’s rural land is an important resource. It comprises a number of landuses, landforms and vast areas of native vegetation. It is productive as a source of food, fibre and consumerables; it is also important for biodiversity habitat and catchment management as well as a place for people to live and work.
Rural land is being placed under pressure for further subdivision as more people seek it as a place to live. Most of the good agricultural land is located on the coastal fringe of the continent between Brisbane and Adelaide. This land also has a vast resource of biodiversity habitat. It is also where much of the population growth is occurring in the form of urban and rural sprawl.
The population growth is placing pressure on the rural land and there is a need to provide a suite of strategies to ensure that it is managed and conserved in a sustainable manner. This should include land use controls, incentives and other mechanisms. This paper will discuss all of these but will focus on land use planning.
A methodology to classify rural land has been developed which considers the biodiversity, food and fibre as well as the lifestyle issues in a balanced and objective manner. It is based on a detailed study of the land use, lot size and natural features of the area in conjunction with the need to consider the concepts of ecologically sustainable design (ESD) and total catchment management(TCM). The outcomes of the methodology are a series of land units which can be either converted to zones or places if a place management philosophy is to be pursued. The methodology has been applied to a number of LGAs in NSW.
Although this paper focuses on the Sydney region, the issues and problems are evident throughout Rural NSW, Australia and New Zealand.
Read more at:
http://www.ruralplanning.com.au/library/papers/rapi02.pdf (PDF, 74 KB)
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Two (historic…) library papers from the New Zealand Quality Planning website http://www.qualityplanning.org.nz/
Problems of Rural Subdivision (PDF, 1.51 MB)
By Hon Simon Upton, Minister for the Environment
Published by New Zealand Planning Institute – January 1995
This paper discusses rural subdivision. The paper questions whether traditional approaches to controlling subdivision are not exercising a malevolent influence on the new environmentally focused legislation under which we now work.
Rural Subdivision – What is the Real Problem? (PDF, 120.69 KB)
By Adrienne Young Cooper (Hill Young Cooper Ltd)
Published by Resource Management Law Association of New Zealand Inc – August 1995
This article highlights what the author believes to be “the real problem with rural subdivision” and identifies reasons for the problem.
Great links, Elizabeth. I had forgotten about Brisbane. The uncontrolled subdivision sprawl out across the traditional soak plains was identified as a major contributing factor for the devastating floods experienced recently in Brisbane. Naturally, of course, they weren’t doing it “the southern way”. So we should be just fine. Right, Malcolm ?
Phil, met a couple not long ago (friends of our extended family, originally from Waikouaiti) here in the city to settle her father’s estate, straight from the “soak plains” and still very fragile after their flooding ordeal at Brisbane. What they described was truly frightful; she’s a senior nurse so met everything head on in her job. Food for thought.
### radionz.co.nz 29 June 2012 – 12:12 pm NZ time Updated at 5:32 am today
Radio New Zealand National – News
Key denies housing crisis in Christchurch
Prime Minister John Key says there is no housing crisis in Christchurch – despite one of his ministers saying that there is. Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said Christchurch residents who are living in cars should squat in safe red-zoned properties to get through the winter. But Mr Key says it’s wrong to suggest anyone should stay in an abandoned home, because it is illegal and potentially dangerous. Mr Key says if people cannot find accommodation, they should make contact with one of the Government’s social welfare agencies.
Read more
Well… if John Key says there is no housing crisis in Christchurch it must be true. Isn’t it?
He’s got a mandate to define “NZ’s facts & figures” and act accordingly – hasn’t he? The asset sales facts and figures look like they’re pimped by him in support of his “mandate” to sell assets – because that’s what he said he’d do, before the election. Pity he didn’t say “Will sell if the unpimped figures indicate this will be a wise course of action.”
So OF COURSE there’s no housing crisis in Christchurch. If only people would contact the right agency and fill in the right forms…… then redefine their cars, tents, garages etc as “desirable residences needing nothing more than a little TLC, get out your paint brushes” in real estate-speak.
### ODT Online Wed, 11 Jul 2012
Notices to boil water still likely after upgrade
By Ellie Constantine
A planned upgrade of Outram’s water treatment plant meets Dunedin City Council’s budget constraints, but boil-water notices may still be required for the area. The council completed a water and sanitary service assessment in 2006 which revealed Outram’s water supply would need to be upgraded by July 2014 to comply with Drinking Water Standards New Zealand (DWSNZ). The scheme supplies about 680 people in the Outram area.
Read more
### 3news.co.nz Fri, 10 Aug 2012 7:00p.m.
NZ houses unaffordable for many
Yesterday house prices hit another high. To say house prices in New Zealand are overvalued is to state the blindingly obvious. According to a survey by Demographia, the median house price across the country is 5.2 times the median wage – less affordable than all our major trading partners except Australia. In Auckland prices are 6.4 times the median household income – one of the highest rates in the world, and more expensive than both Los Angeles and New York. Anything over three times is considered unaffordable.
Read more + Video
Phil, there is a couple of things that have come out about that Brisbane flood. Like the fact the dam built to stop that sort of thing was in fact being used in reverse as a water storage unit so was in fact no fucking use when a flood did happen, even though that was what it was built for.
Stinks of bubbernment again eh, just someone else’s problem that time.
Related comment:
### ODT Online Tue, 2 Oct 2012
Opposition to Outram development
By Chris Morris
The expansion of Outram has run into opposition from neighbours upset at developers’ ambitions for two new subdivisions in the village. Their arguments have also won support from a Dunedin city councillor and the Otago Regional Council, which has voiced concerns about new homes in the area. The reaction comes after developers behind two separate subdivisions in Outram applied to the Dunedin City Council to change the Dunedin district plan to allow their projects to proceed. Both wanted rural land rezoned for residential use, together allowing up to 52 new homes to be built.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/latest-edition/7779834/Govt-plan-means-cheaper-housing
### ODT Online Fri, 23 Nov 2012
Subdivision would sustain Outram: developer
By Debbie Porteous
A 7.7ha site at Formby St, Outram, is good for little else and a residential development would help sustain the township, the company behind a proposed a 28-lot subdivision says. Two Note Ltd’s application for a private plan change to rezone the site from rural to residential is being heard by the Dunedin City Council’s hearings committee. If successful, the company intends to apply for resource consent for the subdivision. Two Note yesterday presented its case after members of the public made submissions, largely against the plan change application, and a report from council planners recommended city councillors reject it.
Submitters and council planners are concerned about the densification and amenities, the loss of productive soils, the impact on the community, the demand for housing, the height of buildings and loss of sunlight. They are also concerned about flooding, discharge of stormwater, pressure on the existing water supply infrastructure, traffic issues, and the land possibly being contaminated by an old dump and former market garden activities.
Lawyer Michael Nidd, of Dunedin, consultant planner David Harford, of Ashburton, and Two Note director Gordon Mockford, of Christchurch, told the committee aside from the benefits to the community, the land in question, at 16 Formby St, could not be used in any other economically viable way. Mr Nidd said preliminary soil tests by the applicant showed soil on the site was relatively free of contamination, satisfying concerns about the potential loss of productive soil.
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Well that definitely doesn’t relate to Outram anyway, or any of the other developments out on the Taieri! Affordable. LMAO.
Who can afford what, wirehunt :) The local developers of the Taieri might care to explain who their market audience really is.
Comment removed to new post.
### ODT Online Sun, 18 Nov 2012
Labour pledges to build 100,000 homes
By Claire Trevett – New Zealand Herald
Labour’s new affordable housing policy is to build 100,000 basic homes over 10 years – a scheme Labour’s leader David Shearer said will create jobs as well as give first home buyers in areas of high house prices such as Auckland the chance to buy a home. Mr Shearer set out the details of the ‘KiwiBuild’ policy in his keynote speech at the party’s annual conference today. He said it was the largest public building programme in 50 years – and as well as addressing the problem of housing affordability for first home buyers, it would create jobs. Labour will also clamp down on landlords by requiring rental properties to meet minimum standards of insulation and heating before they can be tenanted out. -APNZ
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Silly me, I hadn’t realised Outram needed sustaining. How lucky for its inhabitants that developers came along to take pity on them. Where’s the gratitude?
/sarcasm
Hype. You are not a ‘Big Picture’ visionary, I’m afraid.
City planners have today changed their mind, and now support the Outram developers
Tom, the City Planning team fold early when Dave and Syd say so. That is the reading. It’s election year. It’s economic development.
And – NONE, ABSOLUTELY NONE of this is sustainable.
I forget, which of these plan changes are Syd’s cousins in real life ?
Let’s see them all try and get Resource Consent for their septic tanks. ORC isn’t DCC.
If this thing goes ahead, guess which real estate office will get the listings? A clue, it begins with ‘N’.
Noddyville or Niddyville, it’s all the same. A putrefying quagmire where toadies live.
### ODT Online Sat, 24 Nov 2012
Outram plan gains support
By Debbie Porteous
A proposed subdivision in Outram has received a boost after Dunedin City Council planners did an about turn to support a plan change that could lead to development approval. Council planners had not supported the proposal to rezone the site from rural to residential before a hearing on the application this week, but yesterday said they were now satisfied developer, Two Note Ltd, had addressed most of their concerns, particularly those about infrastructure and amenity. If Two Note’s application for a private plan change is successful, it will apply for resource consent to construct a 28-lot subdivision on a 7.7ha site in Formby St, Outram. Planner Darryl Sycamore said he would support the plan change as long as a detailed structure plan for the proposed subdivision and the results of comprehensive soil testing, to rule out contamination, were submitted to the committee before a decision was made. In delivering his response to Two Note’s submissions, Mr Sycamore said he was satisfied with the developer’s agreement to height restrictions and setbacks on some sites, but he found the concept of the sites being touted as affordable housing “relatively curious”. “I have yet to see any residential 5 sites in Dunedin city that are within the budgets of many in our community.”
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More rural subdivision for the attempt – think rural zoning, commercial residential, outstanding landscape (Strath Taieri Outstanding Landscape area).
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### ODT Online Sat, 24 Nov 2012
Bed and breakfast proposal non-complying
By Debbie Porteous
Dunedin city planners have recommended councillors reject an application to subdivide a rural Middlemarch property with a bed and breakfast business on it, because it would create a small-site commercial-residential activity which would not comply with the rural zoning of the area. Star Holdings Ltd has applied to the Dunedin City Council to subdivide a block at 38 Reefs Rd into two lots.
One 4ha lot would contain the former Strathmore Station homestead, now known as the Pukerangi Country Retreat, garden and a sleepout, and the capacity of existing accommodation in the homestead would be increased to 13 paying customers. The current owners would retain the site and operation. The other lot would be subsumed back into the wider farm. The current site already has resource consent for a bed and breakfast business for up to eight guests, with the condition the consent holder or a manager is resident on site.
The new application seeks to allow for the accommodation to be self-contained, meaning no resident manager, and the sleepout would be used as a bunk room.
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All details (nearly) have been removed from the DCC website about this application, except for:
Weekly Meeting Schedule
Click to access DCC-Noticeboard-Sat-17-Nov-2012v2.pdf
Tuesday, 20 November
9.00am Hearings Committee – to consider an application for resource consent for 38 Reefs Road, Middlemarch
Pukerangi Homestead Country Retreat http://www.pukerangihomestead.co.nz/index.pasp
Lynette and Marty Deans
Pukerangi Homestead Country Retreat
38 Reefs Road
Pukerangi
Postal address:
Barewood Station
R.D.2
Outram 9074
Couldn’t this whole subdivision process be deferred until Syd Brown is thrown out of council at the next election? Since it’s going down in his patch, I’m sure he will be working the backroom staking claims for himself and a few others. While the Stadium Councillor is still on council I cannot trust a decision to be made in the best interests of the community, certainly not while his co-offenders Colin ‘I’ll Fix Your Subdivision Rezoning’ Weatherall and that Waikouaiti councillor Andrew ‘Taieri Can’t Vote Me Out Na Na Nana Na’ Noone are in there fiddling affairs.
No Stadium Councillor should be trusted.
Vote in candidates who are not afraid of upsetting the Stakeholders and who work in the city’s best interests.
[1.4.08] http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/mosgiel/2587/controversial-change-approved
It’s already got a b&b on it :
” a bed and breakfast business on it” but subdividing is turned down “because it would create a small-site commercial-residential activity which would not comply with the rural zoning of the area” although they only want to split it into 2 parts and one “would be subsumed back into the wider farm.” It’s already a b&b for 8 guests plus farm manager (and family?), the proposal is that this be increased to 13 paying customers and the manager live elsewhere. “If a 4ha site was created, it could be sold, which could increase residential density in the area, thereby decreasing its rural amenity” is one of the objections, but unless the 4ha is further subdivided what difference to residential density is envisaged? Looks like the real objection is that the owners – who clearly aren’t buddy-buddies with Otago’s esteemed Steak-holders – might make a profit. Can’t have that, can we? Can’t have The Wrong People making a profit, by crikey no.
I would need to see the full application.
All this land use BS that the greedy council is into is going to backfire.
The day that the water is lapping at my back door is in fact the day I’ll be coming to town hunting bear, top of list will be whoever is the current mayor.
Fact, down the back has flooded many many times.
Fact. Council has allowed houses to be built there.
Fact. They have raised the land level via foundations and other earthworks.
UNKNOWN FACT. Where does the water now go ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
-If- When it hits my place I am going to be in one hell of a mean mood when I do get to town.
You can’t displace X amount of cubic metres of water and think it’s going to disappear, even though that’s what council would try and have you believe. (Hmmm, sounds like a council debt thing)
Just go ask the volunteer fire brigade in Outram about it, they are out pumping these good sections out with surprising regularity…….
Now better go fill that survey in on the dog lot council sent me, this will be interesting. Idiots.
It’s another rumble pending between DCC and ORC.
Good luck with the dogs…
### ODT Online Fri, 30 Nov 2012
DCC concern over rising sea levels; Houses to be built higher
By Vaughan Elder
The threat caused by the rising sea level means new homes in some coastal areas of Dunedin will have to be built up to 1.2m higher off the ground to reduce the risk of being flooded. The changes announced by the Dunedin City Council yesterday apply to the floor levels of residential or communal buildings and extensions, but not to industrial or commercial buildings.
The new minimum levels, on average 75cm above the previous level, do not apply to South Dunedin because of the protection provided by sand dunes and the way the area has been developed. The previous level was 2.15m above the mean sea level in Dunedin measured in 1958 and 29mm above the previous highest recorded tide in Dunedin in March 1980.
About 7000 properties close to coastal areas have some, or all, of their land below the new minimum floor level, of which 5400 are in South Dunedin where the existing rule will still apply.
The new levels apply to 1560 coastal properties, mainly in and around harbour towns, of which just under 1000 are in residential or communal use. The change also meant flood warnings were yesterday added to properties in coastal parts of Dunedin, including South Dunedin, which Cr Kate Wilson said had potential to affect both property values and insurance costs. The information, added to Land Information Memorandums (LIMs) yesterday, warned owners and purchasers houses below the new minimum levels could be subject to increased flooding risk over the next 50 years “from elevated sea-level rise associated with climate change”. The new levels ranged from 45cm above the previous levels in the upper Otago Harbour to 1.2m above in the suburb of Brighton.
Read more
Yesterday:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/237081/rising-seas-prompt-new-dunedin-building-rules
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Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Minimum Floor Levels in Some Coastal Areas To Rise To Counter Climate Change (29 Nov 2012)
Floor levels in new buildings or extensions will have to be higher to protect against flooding due to climate change
### ODT Online Tue, 12 Feb 2013
Outram land rezoning hearing for second developer
By Debbie Porteous
The second of two developers proposing to build new subdivisions in Outram will have its application to change the district plan heard this week. Like Two Note Ltd, which is awaiting a decision after the Dunedin City Council’s hearings committee heard its application last year, Balmoral Developments (Outram) Ltd also faces initial opposition to its plans from council planners. The developers both want rural land rezoned for residential use, together allowing up to 52 new homes to be built in the small rural township, which consisted of just 249 houses in total at the last census.
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More about Taieri High Class soils on the Veggie Boys thread.
### ODT Online Thu, 14 Feb 2013
Outram project land contentious
By Chris Morris
The second of two subdivisions planned for Outram will be safe to develop, despite concerns seismic activity, liquefaction and flooding could threaten the site, a Dunedin City Council hearings committee has been told. The evidence came as representatives for Balmoral Developments (Outram) Ltd presented arguments in favour of a plan change to the council’s hearings committee yesterday. The company, together with an adjoining landowner, want to build 24 homes on 6.7ha of rural land beside State Highway 87, Holyhead Rd and Mountfort St. Balmoral has applied to the council for a plan change for the subdivision, which would have the district plan amended and the rural land rezoned for residential use. That was despite opposition from some neighbours and concerns from the Otago Regional Council, in its submission, that the site was unsuitable because of the risk of liquefaction and settlement in an earthquake.
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### ODT Online Sat, 16 Feb 2013
Decline subdivision: report
By Debbie Porteous
An application for consent to subdivide 19ha on the edge of urban Dunedin has run into problems with city planners, who say the plan goes against the city’s guiding spatial plan document, which does not support any more rural residential development around the edges of the city. The application from RPR Properties Ltd is for resource consent to allow a nine-lot subdivision, of 2ha lots, at 41 Dalziel Rd, effectively changing the zoning in the area from rural, to rural residential. The application will be heard by the council’s hearings committee on Monday.
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What does this mean?
“The council planner was “satisfied there was a way forward if the applicant was willing to discuss alternatives that would simplify the subdivision, making it a better transition area between residential and rural residential, while at the same time future proofing the land for better future development”.”
{Comment in reply to Elizabeth moved to another thread. Relevance. -Eds}
It means “We are sure they will rephrase their application so we can bow down and give them what they want.”
“Not only that, we’ll tell them how to rephrase it”
Need +1 button…..
### ODT Online Tue, 19 Feb 2013
Developer: DCC attitudes stifle growth
By Chris Morris
A developer, who says he is frustrated by years of delays and mounting costs, has accused the Dunedin City Council of stifling city growth. Thomas Richardson, a director of RPR Properties Ltd, voiced his concerns yesterday while arguing for a resource consent to develop a nine-lot subdivision at 41 Dalziel Rd, on Three Mile Hill. Mr Richardson told the council’s hearings committee he had spent at least $250,000 developing plans for the land, but had been knocked back repeatedly since 2004 by council planners with ”subjective ideas” about how the site should be used.
He had originally planned a village development of at least 100 homes on the land, but scrapped the project in 2006 after two years of delays, which he blamed on council processes. The delays related, in part, to the time it took for the council’s district plan to become fully operative, which was needed before he could seek a private plan change for the development, he said. By the time the plan was operative, the market had turned and, together with other factors, meant the development had to be cancelled, he said.
Mr Richardson’s subdivision would create nine 2ha rural residential lots on the site, where a bushy gully and stone walls would be protected by covenant.
The proposal attracted seven submissions – three opposing, two supporting and two neutral. Two neighbours were concerned in part about lost rural views. The Otago Regional Council wanted geotechnical assurances.
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### ODT Online Sat, 1 Jun 2013
Consent big relief at last
By Chris Morris
A Dunedin developer who accused the Dunedin City Council of stifling growth, after nearly a decade of delays to his subdivision plans, has finally won his fight for a resource consent. Thomas Richardson, a director of RPR Properties Ltd, has been granted consent for a nine-lot rural residential subdivision at 41 Dalziel Rd, on Three Mile Hill. And, after first planning a 100-lot residential development in the area in 2004, Mr Richardson yesterday said permission to finally proceed was a relief ”after all these years”.
Read more
At a glance I’m not seeing any of the Stadium Councillors of both DCC and ORC, or any the usual Stakeholders, involved in this venture. Is that why the directors are having so much trouble getting this off the ground? Apart from infrastructure expansion – and those worries never stopped Syd Brown – they appear to be investing their own money, following due process and not using their circumstances to dip into the public purse. What beauty was held over Three Mile Hill has already been diminished by felling the surrounding forestry so might as well chuck a few more homes up there too.
Anonymous, you speaketh against the intentions of the ‘Dunedin Spatial Plan’.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, sustainability doesn’t enter into it… not sure it does here.
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Dubai is the new Land of Opportunities
Submitted by A.S.Sebastian on Tue, 19/02/2013 – 7:13am.
I am an engineer by profession from India. When I landed first in Dubai from Bombay, India in 1979, I had no plan to stay for more than 2 or 3 years but it so happened that I continued to stay and work in Dubai until this day!
Dubai has grown from a land of sand (and camels) to an amazing city of skyscrapers and fully developed infrastructures – all within a short span of 20 years! In comparison, my own state/country continues to stay where it was with all the privileges of democracy.
I salute the visionary leadership provided by Dubai ruler, Shk. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum for this extraordinary achievement.
### ODT Online Sun, 7 Apr 2013
Many concerns about proposed subdivision
By Chris Morris
There are fears Waitati’s village ambience will be damaged – and historic Maori and European artefacts lost forever – if a proposed subdivision is allowed to proceed.
Invermark Investments Ltd has applied to the Dunedin City Council for consent to subdivide 17ha of rural land, including some on the edge of Blueskin Bay, to create four new rural-residential properties. Three of the new sites would have new homes built on them, while the fourth would surround an existing home, a report by council planner Lianne Darby said.
The proposal has attracted 33 submissions, including 29 opposed – almost all of them from Waitati residents worried about the development.
Read more
● The consent application will be considered by the council’s hearings committee on Thursday.
I don’t see what’s good about spreading demand for services over even more of the gigantic area that is, officially, “Dunedin”. The first occupants of new semi-rural homes may well accept country-style facilities but look what happens, it’s no time before the demands come in for all the services of the major urban centre to be extended to these outlying settlements. One “lifestyle” subdivision joins with another making a kind of lifestyle-sprawl gobbling potentially or already productive land. The council goes on about sustainability, which surely must mean more than a few community gardens. In my opinion it should leave the way open for more of our food needs to be produced within coo-ee of consumers, thus allowing for increasing transport costs as well as the possibility of extreme weather events causing breaks in roads and railways and closure of airports.
Why has this man been put through all this trouble on land that has very little economic value for farming. When others are given a charmed run to a point of changing the district plan to suit their needs for a similar development on some of our very best rural productive farmland?
Whippet, you mean you wanna understand DCC, Sydney Brown and his “friends” of Mosgiel-Taieri ward ?
One might say “District Plan – it’s because we need planning not ad-hockery” were it not for, as you say Whippet, “When others are given a charmed run…….”
### ODT Online Tue, 12 Aug 2014
Concern subdivision will ruin rural feel
By Debbie Porteous
The Otago Racing Club has a battle on its hands over its plans to subdivide part of Wingatui racecourse. Residents of the Dunedin suburb strongly oppose the club’s proposal to subdivide the Gladstone Rd North edge of their property into 12 residential sections, saying it will ruin the rural feel of the area. The club has previously said it wants to subdivide to raise capital for improvements to course facilities.
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See recent comments at this post Whistleblowers’ message heard ??! #OtagoRacingClub #pokierorts
### ODT Online Tue, 25 Nov 2014
Planners back 81-lot subdivision
By Neal Wallace
An 81-lot residential subdivision in Mosgiel should be allowed to go ahead, Dunedin City Council planning staff are recommending to councillors.
Situated at 67 and 67A Gladstone Road North, the 7.5ha block earmarked to be subdivided has been landlocked, preventing it from being developed for the past 35 years. What has changed is that Wanaka-based Minaret Resources has managed to secure a right-of-way by buying a Hagart Alexander Dr house (No 112), which will be removed.
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### ODT Online Sat, 29 Nov 2014
Tears as couple’s fears expressed
By Shawn McAvinue
A man broke down and cried in Dunedin yesterday while talking about a new proposed road and subdivision in Mosgiel. Mosgiel residents Rod and Shona Innes, of 114 Hagart-Alexander Dr, and Matt and Tina Paul, of 110 Hagart-Alexander Dr, gave a Dunedin City Council hearing committee in the Municipal Chambers yesterday the reasons why they wanted the consent for a new 82-lot subdivision to be declined.
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### ODT Online Wed, 28 Oct 2015
Busy summer of earthworks for new 81-lot subdivision
By Eileen Goodwin
A busy summer lies ahead at the still unnamed 81-lot subdivision between Gladstone Rd North and Hagart Alexander Dr in Mosgiel. Consulting surveyor Kurt Bowen, of Paterson Pitts, Dunedin, said the Dunedin City Council recently granted earthworks consent for the 6.6ha subdivision.
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Creation of Public Reserves in Mosgiel subdivisions
See comment at related post:
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WANAKA 2 at #DUD
Kill the cul de sacs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Big FAIL to DCC for accepting this kind of ‘community’ (joke!) planning for housing on the Taieri. An abomination of CRASS speculator kind.
DON’T BUY.
### radionz.co.nz 9:03 am on 19 March 2016
RNZ News
Mould could give useful housing data
A question about mould in homes could be included in the next census. In a test census taking place next week, Statistics New Zealand will ask if there is mould in the dwelling, and whether it is bigger in total than an A4 sheet of paper. Head of Census 2018 Denise MacGregor said it was hard to ask about housing quality in an objective way, because cold, heat, and build quality could be subjective. That’s why there is a question about mould, she said, because it’s an easy question to answer. […] The Salvation Army welcomed the move, Salvation Army policy analyst Alan Johnson saying it would show how good or bad the country’s housing stock is.
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