Merivale road deviation plan proposed again

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 5

Merivale road deviation plan proposed again

A District Scheme variation to allow the realignment of Office Road in Merivale was recommended again by the Christchurch City Council’s town-planning committee yesterday. The proposal will go to the council without provision for a short one-way stretch of Office Road near Akela Street that some councillors had questioned. ! Instead, the variation pro- { posal would say that some future means would be taken to restrict the flow of through traffic. Councillors had questioned the effectiveness of a barrier to west-bound traffic in Office Road that might have been ignored, leading to possible accidents. The committee’s chairman, Cr Helen Garrett, said there were conflicting views

about the variation — even without the specific one-way proposal — which should be aired at a public hearing. The proposed Office Road deviation would meet St Albans Street at Papanui Road, where traffic signals would be installed. A road deviation would pass through vacant land between St Albans’ Methodist Church and a petrol station. Church trustees have suggested a different street link, which would require the purchase and demolition of houses to allow an intersection 'link of St Albans Street and Rugby Street. That approach was not acceptable to councillors, but they assured trustees that the Office Road variation would include provision for mounding, landscaping,

and other sound-control measures next to the church property. G.U.S. Properties, Ltd, which owns the vacant land and developed the adjacent Merivale Mall, has appealed against a council decision which keeps the area from being zoned for car-parking. The committee said that all reference should be deleted in the proposed variation to commercial zoning — allowing car-parking — extended over remaining residentially zoned pockets of land in the Merivale Mall block. Such an extension had been opposed by the Merivale Precinct Society. Cr Garrett said the proposed variation was “both important and urgent” She said the land for such a deviation might not remain vacant for long.