City’s potential to grow west defended

Palmerston North’s proposed new wastewater bylaw could have inadvertently locked out a planned urban growth area west of the city.

Pioneer City West and Heritage Estates asked the city council to rezone the 73 hectare-block from rural to residential in a private plan change application in 2013.

It is part of a block the city council has identified for possible residential development after housing is built at Whakarongo, at the opposite end of the city.

But the maps attached to the proposed bylaw exclude the land from the wastewater service area where connections to Palmerston North’s pipelines would be allowed.

Pioneer City West and Heritage Estates spokesman Johnny Farquhar told the council’s planning and strategy committee on Monday the bylaw was not justified and not reasonable.

Farquhar asked councillors to reject it altogether. He said if it was adopted, it could pre-empt the outcome of the rezoning hearing and prohibit development in the area from connecting to the pipeline taking wastewater to the city’s Totara Rd treatment plant.

Failing that, it should at least have maps that recognised the council’s own urban growth strategy, and its asset management plan that predicted extending wastewater services to the City West area some time after 2023.

Farquhar said there was a council-owned sewer pipe running through the land that was just five years old and using only 15 per cent of its capacity, so there was no reason to restrict the future suburb’s ability to connect to it.

The committee simply heard the submission, and will not deliberate on the matter until May.

City council policy analyst Peter Ridge said staff would be considering how to respond to the issues and would make a recommendation to the council.

Ridge said the developers were looking for clarity and certainty, which was not an unreasonable request.

‘‘There was definitely no mischievous behaviour involved,’’ he said.

Ridge said the issues had been clearly laid out, and there was no fundamental problem that could not be addressed.