Bottle Lake afforestation approved

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 1

Bottle Lake afforestation approved

The Christchurch City Council’s parks and recreation committee yesterday passed a series of recommendations approving afforestation of the Bottle Lake plantation.

But debate about whether plantation land should be used for residential purposes is likely to continue until further studies of the area are completed. The committee was acting on a report by a Bottle Lake project team, which called for the present policy of afforestation to be continued, and urged that a plan to make areas of the plantation open to the public for recreational purposes be implemented as soon as possible. Objections were raised by Cr B. J. Britten, who called the report “somewhat biased and totally inappropriate.” Cr Britten called for an independent study on the area to be conducted by a team of accountants and solicitors not related to the council. “The future of Christchurch, and whether to establish growth points outside the city, must be resolved,” he said. “More than 1000 acres of the plantation are already zoned for reparation. To extend that area would be unreasonable.” Cr Britten said that the area was unsuitable for afforestation because of climatic conditions. “There have been two major storms there in the last three years,” he said. “I do not think the council is aware of the extent of the devastation.”

Fire restrictions would also restrict the suitability of the plantation as a recreational area. Development would take 30 to 50 years, and might prove to

be a physical impossibility, he said. The chairman of the project team (Mr J. H, Gray) conceded that the report did not intend to be a definitive statement on the area, but said that residential development of such a heavily forested area would be at least twice as expensive as certain other areas which were available.

“I cannot accept that the adjacent Parklands suburb is comparable in any way,” Mr Gray said. “We are not aware of any experience in New Zealand in clearing such a heavily forested area for residential development.” Speaking in defence of the report, Cr J. F. Burn recommended that plantation land be not sold for development unless its financial situation grew desperate. “I think we can cope with the growth in population by building smaller sections within the city,” he said. “If we go on encouraging sprawl, the whole situation will get out of hand,” Cr Bum said. “It will become impossible to provide services.” The chairman of the parks and recreation committee (Cr P. J. R. Skellerup) said that afforestation had been a successful council policy since 1910. "I am convinced that problems can be overcome,” he said. “I maintain that the public interest lies in preserving the Bottle Lake plantation.” Cr Britten accused Cr Skellerup of holding a “negative attitude” towards development over the years, causing Cr N. Sutherland to interject that developers, rather than preservationists, were the ones whose attitude was negative. “I think it is simply scandalous to allow great areas of land to be gobbled up in order to build dogkennel slums,” she said.