Rezoning saleyards ‘unrealistic’

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 8

Rezoning saleyards ‘unrealistic’

Rezoning the Canterbury Saleyards for high-density housing to force the saleyards out was “totally unrealistic,” the Riccarton Borough Council’s townplanning committee was told last evening.

Industrial land bordered the saleyards at the south and west and a railway line was next to it, and so the residential development wanted by the council was unlikely to occur, said the solicitor for the Canterbury Sale Yards Company, Ltd, Mr Garth Gould. The committee was hearing objections to changes the council wants to make to the saleyards’ land zoning, at the corner of Deans Avenue and Blenheim Road. The council wants to:

® Take away the land’s provision for heavy industrial use and make it an area for high-density housing.

® Keep a comprehensive

development plan for the saleyards land and provide a road to link Lester Lane, south of the yards, with Mayfair Street, north of Blenheim Road. 9 Keep high-density housing as the use for land on Deans Avenue north of Blenheim Road (opposite the saleyards) but take away any provision for comprehensive development. It also wants better landscaping to complement Hagley Park along the Deans Avenue part of this land. The council said it needed to make the changes to tighten up its town-planning ordinances. These were criticised by the Planning Tribunal earlier this year when it had to decide a case including the council and the. saleyards company. The company wanted to erect a new building. The tribunal upheld the council’s decision to refuse the company permission to

build a $lOO,OOO showroom in which to sell animals. Mr Gould said that the saleyards land should be zoned Industrial C for industrial use, rather than for high-density residential use. “It is totally unrealistic to zone it Residential C, and even your planning consultant’s report seems to be rather lukewarm about it,” he said. The chairman of the Saleyards Company’s directors, Mr John Strack, said that it was “extremely unlikely” that the saleyards would move from their present site for many years, in spite of the council’s wish. “It is for this reason that the company is interested in upgrading the facilities now available,” he said.

“Without them ... the yards will continue to function as they have in the past, only they will lack some amenities which the public and yard users might otherwise have enjoyed.”

The Mayor of Riccarton, Mr Richard Harrington, asked if approving the $lOO,OOO building refused earlier this year would have prolonged the saleyards’ life and encouraged the company to stay longer. Mr Strack said it would not have, as the company had no plans to move. A town-planning consultant, Mr Michael Garland, said for the company that he felt the saleyards land should not be zoned for residential use. The area was segregated from any other residential land by Blenheim Road, and at best could only form an isolated 'area with little hope of developing a sense of community. “That land is better used for industrial activity with appropriate landscaping requirements,” said Mr Garland.

The proposed residential zoning was also at odds with the council’s policy to

remove the saleyards. Residential zoning would help to entrench the saleyards as few residential developers , were likely to be attracted to the site because of its industrial neighbours. The saleyards company also had the rights of exist- . ing use of the land, which meant it had legal protection to stay indefinitely, he said. Zoning the saleyards’ land ■ south of Blenheim Road for * industrial use would give it more chance to redevelop, which would hasten the company’s departure.. " : Mr and Mrs J. C. Kench objected to the council’s proposal to link Lester Lane < and Mayfair Street with a road under the Blenheim Road underbridge. . They said it would encourage too much traffic to drive through residential areas north of Blenheim Road. The committee reserved decision.