Chch ‘will soon run out of land for housing’

Press, 2 August 1985, Page 5

Chch ‘will soon run out of land for housing’

Christchurch will run out of residential development land in the city area within 10 years, according to the Canterbury United Council’s annual monitoring report. This has prompted the Christchurch City Council’s town-planning committee to call for an investigation of the options to accommodate further growth in the city. There was a neen now to prepare policies to promote the development of Rangiora, Kaiapoi, and Rolleston and the redevelopment of older parts of the city to higher population densities, councillors said. The United Council report looked at the land still available for residential development within the urban fence or present city perimeter.

In March, 1984, there was 1545 ha of vacant residentially zoned land in the metropolitan area. Between 1978 and 1983, 40 to 50 dwellings were built each year in the city’s green belt. This was an increase of housing stock in this area of 1 per cent. Generally, the United Council report said, the green belt policies were effective in containing the spread of urban Christchurch. The greatest pressures were in Paparua County. Three matters of particular interest to the City Council were the loss of population in the inner city, the need to promote jobs in small urban areas to match population growth in those

areas, and the using up of vacant land suitable for residential development. Because subdivision developments took five to eight years, policies of redeveloping older city areas or developing outlying towns had to be made now. Cr Alex Clark said he believed the council should look at subdividing some of the city’s larger sections in suburbs such as Spreydon. He cited the development of Kintara Lane, which subdivided land at the rear of several properties. Higher densities of population could be achieved in those areas, Cr Clark said. The council should not look only at those areas such as the inner city which already had a high popula-

tion density. Other councillors felt the city’s green belt should be maintained. The City Land Surveyor, Mr Kit Iversen, said the shortage of residential land would push its price up. The committee noted the limited land left for development and called for an investigation by the United Council of options to accommodate growth. Subdivision The council, in co-opera-tion with Christchurch’s other local bodies, has published a booklet on subdivisions. The “Developers’ guide to the code of urban subdivision” is intended to outline requirements for various types of subdivision development.