Demand for sections fires water plan
Water infrastructure will be installed earlier than planned at south Richmond as the demand for sections continues to outstrip supply.
Another 62 sites in the 140-lot Hart Rise subdivision, off Hart Rd, were snapped up as soon as they went on sale in July. The quick turnover mirrored the release of the first 50-odd sites in 2016, which sold out in 24 hours.
Hart Rise spokesman Gordon Webb said demand ‘‘far exceeded’’ the available sites at the subdivision. ‘‘We knew that the demand was high [but] it does take you back when you’ve got 62 sites and something like 110 offers,’’ Webb said.
Tasman district councillors last week approved additional funding of $370,000 in 2017-18 to enable early construction of a planned trunk water main. The main will run alongside the Hart Rise development and an adjacent proposed 49-lot subdivision called Paton Rise. A planned four-stage development, Paton Rise is earmarked for land on the corner of Paton and Bateup roads and is awaiting resource consent.
The move by TDC to approve additional funding for south Richmond follows a similar decision in June when councillors agreed to provide an extra $600,000 in 2017-18 to co-fund water supply infrastructure that would enable the early development of up to 400 dwellings at west Richmond.
In both instances, the council is partnering with developers.
The push to bring forward the installation of infrastructure around Richmond follows a report by TDC development engineer Dugald Ley for a November meeting, which highlighted rapid growth in the district. In his report, Ley says residential development in Richmond, Mapua and Motueka has increased at a ‘‘frantic pace’’ over the past two to three years with growth outstripping predictions in the council’s Long Term Plan by about 300 per cent.
Developer Graeme Dick spoke in the public forum section of that November meeting, saying TDC was at least ‘‘fiveplus’’ years behind in adequate services development/investment and at least 10 years behind in adequate forward planning for growth. There should be ‘‘extreme urgency to capitalise on the feeding frenzy market that has been indicated to council would happen as much as three years ago’’, Dick said.
In June, developer Graham Vercoe told councillors there was a ‘‘really unusual situation in the TDC area’’.
‘‘We’ve got such a lack of available land for people to build on at the moment and I’m talking just about zero,’’ he said.
TDC has since agreed to the additional funding for water infrastructure at Richmond west and south. It also earmarked for approval eight Special Housing Areas including a proposed 800-lot development at west Richmond.
In the Richmond south case, TDC staff approached developers to build portions of the trunk water main adjacent to and through their subdivisions, as they develop the sites.
In a report, council staff say releasing significantly more land in Richmond south and west is dependent on the construction of the the 4.3km-long water trunk main and reservoir.
‘‘These works would be completed in around 10 years under the current Long Term Plan,’’ the report says.
Under the negotiated proposal, about 850m of this water main would be built at an estimated cost of $650,000. Staff propose using growth-related budgets of $280,000 but needed council approval to bring forward funding of $370,000 to make up the balance. The work should be completed in March or April 2018.