Council intends to decline gondola project

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 9

Council intends to decline gondola project

Heathcote County Council intends to decline the planning consent application for the gondola project at the Mount Cavendish reserve on the Port Hills.

The intention of the council to decline planning consent was made in spite of an earlier decision to adopt the gondola proposal subject to certain conditions.

The application for the gondola, restaurant and adjacent toboggan run and artificial ski slope, together with objections to the proposal, were heard by a commissioner appointed by the Heathcote council and the Lyttelton Borough Council. The commissioner’s report was received by the Heathcote County Council in December last year.

The commissioner recommended that part of the application relating to the toboggan run and artificial ski slope be refused but that consent be granted for the base station, top station and restaurant, and the linking aerial cableways.

The council decided to adopt the commissioner’s recommendations but, under the Summit Road Protection Act, 1963, was obliged to refer the proposal to the Canterbury United Council for consideration. The United Council announced its disapproval of the project based on the site last month. Although the United Council has no jurisidiction over the Mount Cavendish reserve site, it is responsible for the land 30m above and below the

Summit Road. Therefore, the aerial cableways on both proposed sites are affected by the United Council’s decision.

Without approval of the cableways the gondola project has come to a halt. "The United Council has taken an interesting step in that it supports the project in principle but is forced into declining it basically on a technicality,” said the Heathcote County Clerk, Mr Pat Cooney. As the council was bound by the United Council’s consideration, the Heathcote council had no option but to decline consent, he said. Before the final decision to decline planning consent is made, the council has invited the public, applicants and objectors, to make written submissions. The submissions must be received at the county office by 4 p.m. on March 18 for them to be considered at the council’s meeting on March 19. In spite of the submissions and the commissioner’s report, “I would expect the council to decline the application as it has no choice but to do so,” Mr Cooney said. However, even after the council’s final decision was posted, interested parties would still have the right to appeal to the Planning Tribunal.