Trees allowed in quarries

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 8

Trees allowed in quarries

Forestry would be added to the list of predominant uses in the quarry zone, the town planning committee of the Paparua County Council decided last evening. The county planner, Mr K. G. Lawn, said in his report that the topic was more urgent than previously because of the establishment of a sub-committee to consider planting trees in some of the council’s reserves. Many of the potential areas were sites held as gravel reserves and had either been worked out or were unlikely to be needed for many years. Many of the reserves were zoned quarry, which did not make provision for forestry as a

predominant use. A possible solution could have been the rezoning of the quarry zone to the appropriate rural zone, which would allow forestry as of right; said the report. The only problem was that some of the reserves might still have been required in the future for quarrying and it might be difficult to get them rezoned quarry from rural. Adding forestry as a predominant use in quarry zones was a realistic step to take because forestry could be an ideal use of land that had already been quarried or of land that was to be held for long-term quarry use 30 or more years in the future, said the report.