Planning Tribunal hears objections

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 9

Planning Tribunal hears objections

Traffic problems on Riccarton Road would become worse and parking would be almost impossible to find if a planned $2 million shopping development in the borough went ahead, the Planning Tribunal heard yesterday. Lyall Rolland Hobson, managing director of Riccarton Mall Supermarket, Ltd, said also that he believed the development could only have an adverse effect on businesses in the mall. The new complex and the shops in the Windmill Centre, in Clarence Street, would draw off business from the shops in the mall. Mr Hobson said that the site for the development, on an area of land between Rotherham Street and Clarence Street, was wrong. It would leave undeveloped an area of land which lay next to the mall and between Rotherham Street and Division Street. The hearing will continue today before the tribunal, which comprises Judge D. F. G. Sheppard (chairman), and Messrs K. A. Earles and P. A. Catchpole.

Foodstuffs. Christchurch Co-operative Society, Riccarton Mall Supermarket, and W. J. Turner, Ltd, have objected to the planned development, which has been approved by a hearing commissioner, Mr Peter Mahon. The company behind the scheme is Fenhall Nominees, a conditional buyer from the Riccarton Borough Council of an area of land about 274 perches .between Rotherham Street and Clarence Street. The company hopes to build a shopping complex and supermarket on the land, which is zoned commercial B. Evidence has been given that delays could affect the viability of the development. Peter Terence McCombs, the Riccarton Borough traffic consultant, said he believed that the traffic, access, and parking details of the development would be a desirable addition to the Riccarton town centre. Kim Philip McCracken told the tribunal that he was a principal of Davie, LovellSmith and Partners, consulting planners, surveyors and

engineers, a firm most involved with the Riccarton Borough Council. He said that the planned shopping complex met all development policies and standards in the council’s commercial B zone. The only ground on which the proposal did not comply was that the area of land was not big enough for a development. Nothing would happen, however, if the council made its development areas too big, said Mr McCracken. As a result, the council had reduced the amount of land needed for a development to a more realistic level. Mr McCracken said that he believed the project could be approved as long as it was established according to the site plan provided. Also, provision would need to be made for 225 off-street parking spaces and the applicants would need to provide the council with a landscape plan. Mr W. G. G. A. Young represents the applicant, Fenhall, and Mr K. J. Jones appears for the Riccarton Borough Council, the respondent.