The urban growth issues facing Belfast have been the subject of a series of studies in recent years:
Building on these technical reports, a series of draft concept plans were prepared to indicate how these urban growth issues can be resolved and urban development managed to avoid adverse effects on the environment, infrastructure and the community. This work formed the development of the Draft Belfast Area Plan.
The Draft Area Plan was released for community consultation in late October 2009 and included a number of public information and feedback sessions. Submissions closed on 4 December 2009. A total of 111 submissions were received and generally indicated support for the concepts being proposed. A number of submissions, however, related to specific land holdings or ensuring that the Plan was flexible enough to accommodate regulatory changes that were already progressed.
The key themes within what were largely supportive submissions included:
- Support for the development of new community facilities.
- Support for reducing traffic volumes and encouraging non-motorised transport.
- Concern over the amount of proposed industrial land and its interface with residential areas.
- Support for public open space provision.
- Concern over the loss of productive farmland.
- Support for improving waterway health and flood management.
- Opposition to the extent of storm water management.
- Support for encouraging connections between neighbourhoods.
- Concern over consistency with existing and proposed statutory procedures, for example, Plan Change 22, Change 1 to the Regional Policy Statement.
- Opposition to whether the noise contours should limit development given existing residential development, for example Kaiapoi, within those contours, especially in consideration of the Regional Policy Statement Proposed Change 1 Decision which identified that area to the south of Johns Road.
- A request for balance when promoting indigenous vegetation over exotic vegetation.
- Clarification of the necessity for further schooling opportunities in the Belfast Area.
- Mahaanui Kurataiao Limited sought that all Goals in the Belfast Area Plan to be drafted in Maori and English, or only in English, and not just the Tangata Whenua Goal.
The Belfast Area Plan was adopted by the Christchurch City Council on 24 June 2010.
View the progress roadmap for the development and implementation of the Belfast Area Plan [PDF 258KB].
