MEDIA RELEASE
20 February 2004

Minimum area agreed for rezoning to residential 8

Housing New Zealand Corporation (HNZC) has withdrawn its appeal to have the minimum area required for residential 8 zone reduced.

HNZC had lodged an appeal to the Environment Court and sought the minimum area be reduced from 1 hectare to 9000m2 – a 10 per cent reduction.

Through the negotiation process, Auckland City Council officers and HNZC agreed that HNZC would withdraw its appeal.

Councillor Juliet Yates, Chairperson of Auckland City’s City Development Committee says, “The Environment Court expects that mediation and negotiation is undertaken on any appeal and sometimes these negotiations take considerable time. In this case I’m pleased the outcome has been satisfactory for both council and Housing New Zealand and that is was achieved very promptly.”

This means there will be no change to the provision that a parcel of land must have a total area of 1 hectare or more before the council would consider rezoning the land to Residential 8.

As has always been the case all applications for Residential 8 will require a plan change. All plan changes must be publicly notified.

Meantime, the appeal process is not completed. Council must negotiate with other parties to the appeal. If no agreement can be reached with these other parties the Environment Court will consider the matter at a hearing. The other parties include Westfield (NZ) Ltd and the Remuera Community Committee.

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