Landowners battle Christchurch airport noise rules as housing land runs short

Sunday, 26 December 2021

Owners of land on the outskirts of Christchurch are fighting airport noise rules they say are outdated and preventing thousands of homes being built in the city.

Development of a long stretch of land from Kaiapoi and Rolleston is heavily curtailed as it sits inside Christchurch Airport noise contours set in 2007.

About 100 landowners have relaunched a long-standing fight to overturn the restrictions, which is based on modelling they say is inaccurate and overdue for revision.

They have gained the support of a small group of Christchurch City councillors.

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ECan is assessing a November airport submission and consultant’s report updating the noise contours – computer-modelled map lines indicating the volume of aircraft noise along flight paths – but changes to zoning rules could take several years.

In a recent presentation to city councillors, council staff and local members of parliament, a delegation of landowners said the 50 decibel (dB) airport outer noise contour was the only one in the world.

They said the contour was based on over-ambitious projections of flight numbers never met, noisy aircraft models since superceded, and obsolete house building standards without sound protection. They fear the latest update repeats what they consider misleading data.

City councillor Phil Mauger, said the city was “desperately short of land” and thousands of ratepayers had been pushed across the border into Selwyn and Waimakariri districts.

“Fifty and fifty-five decibels is no worse than what you’ve got in Memorial Ave with cars going past.”

Mauger said the contour land was “not beautiful marshland or farmland. It is solid land that could be divided for housing”.

“We need more people paying rates in Christchurch, to reduce the burden on our ratepayers of paying for infrastructure.”

Mauger said new homes on the land would boost the city’s rates take by tens of millions of dollars a year, plus development contributions for each property.

He said there seemed to be wide agreement among elected representatives and local government staff that the 50dB restrictions should go.

“This is our chance. Here’s the land – let’s bloody do it.”

The airport’s existing noise contour is based on projections of up to 175,000 flights a year, while its latest review is based on reaching 200,000 flights a year within several decades.

In the past decade and a half flight numbers at Christchurch have fallen in the face of airlines’ tighter flight schedules, increased hubbing at Auckland, and a rise in international traffic at Queenstown Airport.

Airport data shows that after peaking at 81,000 flights in 2007, annual numbers settled at about 75,000 between 2017 and 2019, pre-Covid. During that period, the number of turbo-prop flights overtook those of the bigger jets.

Christchurch’s contours have been unchanged since 2007. Landowners have made several previous attempts to have the restrictions eased, and in 2009 were told changes were “a year or two” away”.

The contours’ regular review schedule was interrupted by the earthquakes, and the post-quake land use recovery plan (LURP) only made exceptions for new housing in Kaiapoi because of red-zoning. Clearwater Resort has also been allowed to develop inside the 50dB zone.

Yaldhurst property owner Brooke McKenzie said he would like to subdivide his four-hectare site for his children to build homes on.

McKenzie said while some landowners stood to profit if they can develop for residential or commercial use, that did not change Christchurch’s need for housing.

He said the rules “should be brought into line with every other airport in the world, at least.”

Other New Zealand cities have outer noise contours set at 55dB, including Auckland and Palmerston North which, like Christchurch, have no curfew. Some overseas cities have set them at 60dB or 65dB.

Decibels are a logarithmic scale, meaning 60dB is twice as loud as 50dB.

ECan’s reassessment is part of its scheduled revision of the spatial plan in its regional policy statement– a what-goes-where guide for the greater city. An acoustic consultancy report commissioned by the airport and supplied to ECan is now being peer reviewed. Public consultation will follow in 2024.

The Resource Management Act (RMA) requires any changes to be implemented through individual councils’ district plans. These could take until 2027 to take effect.

McKenzie said the process of reviewing the contours and updating planning rules needed to be fast-tracked.

“The Government requires the city to identify 30 years of land for residential subdivision. It’s really up to them to make it work. They need to work with local government and ECan.”

ECan councillor Megan Hands said the legal processes of the RMA needed to be followed in reviewing the spatial plan. There were “a lot of moving parts” because of the Government’s ongoing RMA reforms, she said.

“It’s very important that we look at this whole thing holistically, and not just in regard to airport noise.

“There’s a process, and different members of the community will have plenty of time to have their say.

“It is frustrating, as always, that the RMA process takes such a long time.”

The landowners' presentation also claimed the restricted zoning around the airport gives it a commercial advantage as a property developer. It said preventing land development many kilometres away was unjustified while thousands of people worked at businesses around the airport.

The airport, three-quarters owned by council and one quarter by central Government, makes more money from property development than aviation.

It leases land to 250 businesses in shopping, office and industrial developments – including a Bunnings hardware barn, Novotel hotel, and Countdown supermarket – and accommodates between 6000 and 7000 daily workers. A clean energy precinct, Kowhai Park, was recently announced.

ECan’s regional policy statement requires the noise contour review to assess projected future airport growth, including but not limited to aviation.

A spokesperson for the airport company said it was “one of many stakeholders following the process” of the contour review, and it did not want to “work outside the process” by responding publicly to the residents’ concerns.

The airport’s submissions to ECan said airports must plan for future decades. The projections for its future aircraft movements factor in a growing population and economy, it said.

Modelling in the consultancy report also factors in climate change, with extra wind and heat forecast to increase noise levels.

The modelling is based on an ultimate runway capacity for passenger, freight, Government, military, Antarctic, and non-scheduled flights by both fixed-wing planes and helicopters.