Accelerating appetite for urban land in Chch

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32966, 12 July 1972, Page 10

Accelerating appetite for urban land in Chch

Urban planners and development companies in Christchurch were faced with a critical shortage of land, the Canterbury branch of the Institute of Agricultural Science was told this week.

Mr P. Yeoman, a consulting engineer, said that sections did not stay on the market for long: 53 sections in a Kaiapoi subdivision were sold in a fortnight, and title to them was still six months away.

At Aranui, 47 of 49 sections were sold in a month, while in Mairehau. Most of 98 sections were sold within three weeks of going on the market.

Outside the group housing bracket, the average price of a section was now S4OOO. Not many sections remained unsold for long once they came on the market. "Whether we like it or not, Christchurch is a growing city, absorbing land, and it will continue to do so,” said Mr Yeoman. Holdings reduced Mr Yeoman was one of a panel of four persons invited by the institute to discuss urban encroachment on rural land.

In recent years, he said, the size of sections had dwindled from 34 perches down to a minimum of 20, but people liked to buy more land if possible. Given the choice of a front section of 20 perches or a back one of 27, most would select the larger section. Asked how much “waste” land lay within the urban boundary, Mr Yeoman said it had been shown that a city needed to have an area of 15 per cent for ancillary purposes. There was land which was capable of subdivision but the owners just did not want to cut it up. “Some dear old ladies are fitting on

goldmines, but nothing will shift them,” said Mr Yeoman. Mr I. Dalton, a planning consultant with the Regional Planning Authority, said that by 1975, the point would be reached in Christchurch where all urban land was utilised, and further rural land required. By 1985 the urban population of greater Christchurch would be 400.000. More than 350,000, would be living in urban areas set aside by that time. The planners’ job would be to find space for the other 50,000. West Melton had been suggested as a satellite town, but there were alternatives. One was that existing small towns in the outside area be expanded, but there would be problems. Towns like Rangiora and Leeston were on good soils, so there would be rural encroachment. Expansion of smaller towns would also require sewerage schemes, because there were areas where septic tanks were not allowed. “I don’t like the West Melton idea,” Mr Dalton said. “The only alternative is to increase existing urban population densities, but even this, I am told, is meeting resistance.” In the view of Mr A. Smith, a horticuluralist, the use of good land for housing was a good use. The value of vegetables and cut flowers off a fifth of an acre had been put at $5O a year. “This is $250 an acre; I don’t know of many crops which are as payable as this,” he said. Mr Smith said there were three classes of farmer involved in horticulture in Christchurch. They were the “Colombo Street fanner”; the expanding farmer, who took outside employment in addition to growing vegetables;)

and the subsisting farmer—the man who was trying to make a living on an area for which he had paid too much. On the question of housing he said: “I believe a man should build his castle, and live the good life to the best of his ability, so that by building on good soil we have a better community.” Mr David Ives, a soil scientist, said he could not see that it was necessary to look to the best agricultural land for housing. There were 42,000 acres—not of high agricultural potential—in the greater Christchurch area. This would give 250,000 sections.

Mr Ives showed maps indicating the suitability of various areas for housing. It was a fact, he said, that land of high agricultural potential was also particularly suitable for housing.