Christchurch's Christ's College and car dealership owner in Port Hills housing bid

Friday, 15 January 2016

Christ's College and a Christchurch car importer are seeking to subdivide rural land for one of the biggest housing projects on the Port Hills.

The school and Graeme and Joy McVicar want approval for 380 houses off Worsleys Rd in Cashmere Valley, near the proposed Christchurch Adventure Park.

A Christchurch City Council spokeswoman said it had not yet received the application, but Christ's College and Graeme McVicar's company Cashmere Estates confirmed they are about to apply for permission to subdivide 225-311 Worsleys Rd into 380 lots on new 11 streets. 

Environment Court decisions in 1999 and the early 2000s limited housing on Worsleys Spur and up Cashmere Valley, and the latest proposal is a slightly larger version of that earlier application. 

The revised subdivision would be one of the largest housing developments on the Port Hills. Nearby Westmorland Heights on Penruddock Rise is set to have 250 new sections, adding to the 750 Westmorland houses built in stages since the 1970s.

McVicar said the Worsleys Rd houses would probably be built over five to 10 years on sections ranging in size from a townhouse-sized 450sq/metres to 1500 sq/m.

The former forestry lots had a current rating value of $350,000 each, he said, and it was uneconomic to replant them with trees because forestry income had not covered the rates over the past 35 years.

He had considered continuing to farm the land, which had been used for forestry and grazing, but it was flood prone and remedial work would have cost $1 million. He last year told the city's district plan hearing panel the land could revert to scrub if the zoning was not changed to allow residential development.

McVicar is the owner of major car dealership Cockram McVicar Imports and other family members have interests in the McVicar Timber company. He said he and his wife Joy bought 120ha on Worsleys Rd in 1979 and had wanted to subdivide it for about 20 years.

In 1999, a proposed zoning change for Cashmere Valley-Worsleys Spur in the city plan sparked a meeting of 200 concerned residents worried the subdivision would cause flooding in the Cashmere Valley, change the outlook from existing homes, and greatly increase traffic on Dyers Pass Rd.

More recently public submissions about a resource consent application for the mountain biking and adventure park raised similar concerns.

McVicar said although the local community initially opposed the subdivision, it now seemed supportive. 

Christchurch City Council head of planning and strategic transport, Richard Osborne said the subdivision wouldn't require a public hearing if it complied with the district plan. 

However, Osborne also said the district plan was being replaced, so there may still be changes to the Cashmere Valley provisions.

The council had deferred introducing a residential  zone in the area until the first residential subdivision was imminent, he said.

At that point, the developers would vest land in the council for stormwater ponds that could cope with a one-in-500 year flood.

The developers would have to pay for stormwater work, walking and cycling tracks, and protection for a historic stone-walled drain, Osborne said.

The council would pay for any additional stormwater work to reduce flooding downstream of the development, but the design and timing of the stormwater ponds had not yet been finalised.

The McVicars' land is in front of the planned $22 million Christchurch Adventure Park that runs between Dyers Pass, Worsleys and Summit Roads.

A separate entity, McVicar Holdings, has leased 358 hectares of forested land to Canadian group Select Evolution for the recreation park, and it also supports the subdivision.

McVicar said park access would be via an existing road, but a separate sealed road through the subdivision was a possibility.

Christ's College bursar Colin Sweetman said the school had owned land in Worsleys Rd since the 1930s and it covered about a quarter of the proposed 380 sections.

If resource consent was obtained, Christ's College could decide to sell the land to a developer to carry out the subdivision, Sweetman said. 

In June 2010 Christ's College sold 98 residential leasehold properties in Christchurch to Auckland-based Tappenden Holdings for $16 million, but it still has commercial property in the city.