Office extension opposed

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 6

Office extension opposed

Mancah Foundation which plans to add an office building module , to its existing two-storey building at 242247 Manchester Street, was opposed yesterday by the North-East Inner City Neighbourhood Group. . The two-storey extension, the second of three similar office buildings planned by the 1 land-owning arm of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association, was supported by Christchurh City Council planners provided that existing Manufacturers’ Association offices at 263 Cambridge Terrace shifted from their old house within five years. The /Cambridge Terrace site would . then revert . to a residential- .use, : and the * Manufacturers’ ® Association

offices moved to the third module.. The first two modules would be occupied by Accident Compensation Corporation offices. At present, the first office building contains A.C.C. offices, and an old house at 249 Cambridge Terrace has more corporation offices that would move into the proposed extension. • A senior town planner, Mr M. J. G. Garland, said that demolition of the building at 249 Cambridge Terrace . should be done within three years as a coridition of extension approval. The third Mancan module . would eventually: cover part of that site.-' - Mancan received specified

departure approval to build the first office building. Approvalwas granted on the condition that a block of 11 flats Was built nearby in Kilmore Street to help preserve the inner-city block’s residential character. Those flats were built, and were “seen as a way of establishing a permanent and compatible buffer between residential and commercial uses in this area,” said Mr Garland.- ■ / Representing the .neighbourhood group, Mr T. J. Mallett said that a present bias towards office uses in Manchester Street, not bal-, anced by - residential uses, would, “lurch even further towards office, use” if the second arid- third office

blocks were allowed. “The confidence of residents like myself in an area poised delicately between residential revitalisation and decline would be further undermined,” he said. “We do not feel that building office blocks in residential areas is a valid way to establish buffer zones,” he said. Such zones were “just commercial expansion renamed.” Mr P. N. Dyhrberg, who lives and works in a house at 253 Cambridge Terrace, said that it would be unfair for the council to grant consent to the office extension proposal before appeals could be. heard on the reviewed'district scheme’s Residential 6A provisions.