by Geoffrey Churchman

This was held yesterday and was attended by around 150 people, a lot more than the 35 stated members of the society, so clearly many people are rattled by what is being erected by property businessmen in Ngarara Road.

But not only that; the intended development in Eruini Street by the same property businessmen has also concerned a lot of people and was the main topic of discussion during the half hour meeting. It was stated that the businessmen involved have in the last few days put their Eruini Street application with KCDC ‘on hold’ (not the same thing as withdrawn), although why and what the signficance of that is wasn’t at all clear from comments made by the present mayor and deputy mayor. It seems one issue from what Quentin Poole said may be the flood plain and the added floor height needed to be above it in that place (see the comments by Richard Mansell in an earlier post).

A fightback involving a change to the housing intensification requirements the Jacinda regime imposed on councils everywhere is part of what needs to happen (and seems to be happening) to prevent property businessmen from doing this again. The current mayor said she has “even” written to Deputy PM David Seymour to achieve this.

Watch this space, as they say.

A poster produced by the society showing garden area scenes on the left and the unsuccessful Utauta Street high density ‘carbuncle’ on the right.