Land-for-baches swap proposed

Press, 1 September 1989, Page 7

Land-for-baches swap proposed

By

KAY FORRESTER

Thirty-three Taylors Mistake bach owners want to exchange land they have bought in the bay for council approval for a holiday bach zone.

The bach owners have bought 73ha in the valley for a price believed to be about $280,000. Their proposal is to sell or lease some of the land to the Conservation Department for addition to its neighbouring farm park and to make most of the valley floor available to the public as a council reserve. The other I.3ha the group wants zoned for 40 baches.

The bach owners put their proposal to the council’s town planning committee yesterday after first revealing their plans to buy rural land in the bay at council meetings in May.

They see a new holiday zone as a way of securing places in the bay for baches after existing baches are removed. The committee yesterday approved the initiation of two changes to the council’s District Scheme. Change No. 31 would stop a stretch of foreshore road in the bay. Change No. 32 would provide a holiday bach zone for up to 40 baches.

The council has debated the changes before and in May backed off pursuing a change for the holiday zone.

Yesterday the committee felt a scheme change would provide a forum for the discussion of the bach owners’ proposal. That proposal places the zone in the locality preferred in earlier officer reports. It recommends single-storey baches with a maximum floorspace of 70sq m. The land bought by the Taylors Mistake Association is zoned rural and recreational. The association’s representatives told councillors yesterday bach sites within the zone would be sold privately. A body corporate would administer the zone in one ownership. Roads and the reserve areas would be maintained by the council. Several councillors have shied away from insisting on the removal of existing baches until the question of an alternative zone is settled.

' The two scheme changes will be publicly notified and the opportunity for public comment given.

A spokesman for the Taylors Mistake Association, Mr Peter Hill, said the bach owners had paid their share of the $50,000 deposit on the land. Asked what they would do if the council or the Planning Tribunal decided against. a holiday zone in the bay, Mr Hill said: “We’ll become farmers.”