Cost of plan to grow Christchurch may crack $7m
Monday, 2 September 2024
A plan to see Christchurch grow upwards and boost housing supply is expected to cost ratepayers about $7 million in professional fees by the end of the financial year.
Christchurch City Council has spent over $5.6m on plan change 14 - not including the cost of staff time, which the council didn’t provide - since 2021, with $1.3m left in the budget to June 2025.
The process seeks to enable more residential and commercial development in the city.
The first tangible outcome of the plan may come into force on Wednesday, when councillors consider removing height limits in the core of central Christchurch.
While the decision is significant in that may inspire more commercial development within a few blocks of Cathedral Square, it is a fraction of the much larger suite of zoning changes which councillors were expected to vote on at the full council meeting, but have delayed until December.
The delay will affect about 25 residential developments in Christchurch, the resource consent applications for which were paused to wait for new planning rules, according to Mark Stevenson, the council’s head of planning and consents.
It will also delay a decision to remove heritage protection from buildings like St James Church on Riccarton Rd, which the Anglican diocese has wanted to sell for years and potentially use the proceeds on the Christ Church Cathedral restoration.
It is unclear what the delay may cost in terms of additional consultant time. The council spent $3.1m on consultants in the 2023/24 financial year to provide expert planning and legal advice, prepare evidence and present its case to the independent hearings panel, which is overseeing the plan.
In the same financial year, the five commissioners on the panel received a combined $802,000.
The delay is due to an ongoing back-and-forth between the council and panel, whose recommendations, based on evidence collected from the public and experts, including the council’s experts, councillors must vote to accept or reject.
If councillors want to reject a recommendation, they will have to offer Resource Management Act Minister Chris Bishop a convincing alternative. Bishop has the final say.
Based on questions councillors have asked in public information sessions, the council is gearing up to fight some recommendations. However, for legal reasons councillors are forbidden from expressing opinions yet.
The December meeting will consider upzoning - allowing greater housing intensification - the rest of central Christchurch and over 25 other commercial centres in the city, to at least 200m from a central point.
How the rest of Christchurch is upzoned does not need to be decided until December 2025.
The vote on Wednesday will consider removing height limits from the CBD, which have been at 28m since the earthquakes.
The council wanted to make the limit 90m, about 30 storeys, with a council expert saying pre-earthquake there were few very tall buildings anyway, the tallest being Pacific Tower on Gloucester St, at 86.5m, and it may not be in the city’s best interest.
The panel disagreed and recommended to remove the limit all together, though it said anything over 45m, about 15 storeys, should be at the council’s discretion.
Developers currently need permission to build to any height, but proposed new rules would allow for up to 28m, about nine storeys, without resource consent.
Building to heights of between 28m and 45m would need a resource consent, but as a ‘controlled activity’ would need to be approved.