Amberley residents celebrate retaining street name
By David Hill, Local Democracy Reporter
A group of Amberley residents are thrilled their street name will remain the same.
The Hurunui District Council voted last week to rescind a November 25 decision to change the name of Rosewood Drive to Hilton Drive by seven votes to three.
Resident Brian Gill said the decision was a relief to his neighbours, who were faced with the prospect of having a new street name and number.
‘‘At the end of the day democracy was the winner, but we would hope that there is some learning for the council administration that they don’t go roughshod without consulting with the community.
‘‘From our perspective, they had to be held accountable for making their recommendations.’’
He said residents only found out about the name change when they received a letter from the council dated April 29.
‘‘Five months after they had made the decision, they made a letterbox drop advising that from July 1 it will be renamed and this is your new number.’’
The decision impacted on 11 houses and the Little Oaks Preschool.
The residents launched a petition that was presented to Hurunui mayor Marie Black.
They met with Black and council staff on May 11 to air their concerns, before making a deputation to a council meeting on June 2.
‘‘This is an example of local democracy in action,’’ Black said.
‘‘We heard from the people and I thank them for having the courage to come and ask us to reconsider.’’
The council says staff contacted residents of Pound St, Hilton Drive and Rosewood Drive in November, and received responses from 37 properties in person, by phone, email and via SurveyMonkey.
The name Rosewood comes from the name of a nearby farm.
Rosewood Drive was chosen as a temporary name for a link road when stage 3 of the Oakfields subdivision was approved by the council in 2015.
The developer had proposed Hilton Drive South, but the council resolved that the name was similar to the name of an existing road and didn’t align with council policy.
Rosewood Drive runs off Amberley Beach Rd and the intention is for it to eventually link up with Hilton Drive and Pound St.
Residents celebrated the decision by having dinner together at the Railway Tavern in Amberley on June 30.
‘‘We are a fairly tight knit community in the street,’’ Gill said.
Waimakariri district plan faces more delays amid changing rules
By David Hill, Local Democracy Reporter
Changing Government legislation is causing headaches for council staff, as Waimakariri’s new District Plan is set to be delayed again.
Waimakariri District Council development planning manager Matt Bacon said he was relieved when the last of the public hearings ended last week.
But with final council reports due on December 13, staff will have just two working days to present the final District Plan on December 17. A district plan helps to control and manage the development of the district or city.
‘‘We are working through what it looks like and we will update the council at its meeting on December 3,’’ Bacon said.
‘‘But we will likely seek another extension from the environment minister and the Resource Management Act (RMA) minister.’’
The council first notified its draft District Plan in September 2021, but within months legislation was introduced with new medium density residential housing standards (MDRS).
‘‘We needed to call for further submissions and we had to create a separate hearing panel to consider the plan variations to allow for the MDRS,’’ Bacon said.
‘‘We have tried to merge the process as much as possible, as well as looking at re-zoning and incorporating other new legislation.’’
When the draft plan was first notified there was no National Policy Statement (NPS) for Indigenous Biodiversity, but an NPS was introduced - and then replaced.
The Natural and Built Environment Act came into being last year and then repealed, and then there is the NPS on Urban Development and the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan.
The Government is now working on more RMA reforms and Environment Canterbury is working on the Canterbury Regional Policy Statement.
And then there is the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, which includes three proposed housing developments in Waimakariri - two of them outside of the future urban development areas identified in the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan.
All three housing developments in the Bill have been included in submissions to the District Plan, including a proposed 850-home development at Ohoka, near Rangiora, which is also subject to an Environment Court appeal.
‘‘We haven’t seen the detail, so whether it is the same proposals, we don’t know, but they are different processes so we have to just keep doing what we are doing, until we are told otherwise,’’ Bacon said.
‘‘It might just be a timing thing, but we just don’t know.’’
Bacon said delaying the District Plan until new legislation is in place is not an option.
‘‘We are looking at what we can control and having a watching brief, and we will look at transitional timings because we don’t always have to immediately change planning documents when new legislation comes in.’’
Planning manager Wendy Harris said navigating changing Government legislation is a normal part of council planning work.
‘‘If we waited we wouldn’t do anything and we would go nowhere.’’
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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The tiger who came to tea
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