Christchurch City Councillors are about to vote on the most significant planning change ever seen in our city, without knowing the impact or the damage it will do.

That’s the view of residents’ groups who have revealed the three to ten (or more) storey residential buildings proposed will block sunlight to a far greater extent in Christchurch than in any other major city in the country.

Residents’ groups research shows the new one-size-fits-all rules could impose 79% more shade on properties in Christchurch compared with homes in Auckland, simply because the sun is lower in Christchurch than it is in Auckland.

This dramatic difference has never been acknowledged or considered by the government or the Council.

The plan change will also enable enough additional housing to accommodate up to 5 million people, despite the Council’s own projections showing a population increase of just 125,000 is likely by 2050.

The Associations say the law requires plan changes of this magnitude to have gone through an evaluation. They say the Resource Management Act states the Council must not notify such a plan change without sufficient evaluation. This, they say, has never been done or provided to Councillors.

Council staff acknowledged the need for this in the Council’s agenda (4.9 CCC Meeting Agenda 8 September 2022) for PC14 which stated:

“Staff recommend against the Council notifying changes to the District Plan that are unsupported by the evaluation that is required by the RMA.”

The Victoria Neighbourhood Association (VNA) deputation asked, at the meeting, if such an evaluation had been seen by the Councillors. The answer given was, no.

Councillors are being asked to notify these planning changes by Tuesday 13th Sept after that meeting, adjourned from last week. VNA spokesperson Geoff Banks says the people of Christchurch need to understand that the Councillors are about to vote on a significant plan change without knowing the impacts.

He says the government’s “one size fits all” approach to intensification will enable uncontrolled damaging development in our city, as well as create inequality.

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