Changes eyed for Wakefield
Ideas put forward during a public hearing on Wakefield’s future form could see further changes to the town’s considered planning rules and zoning.
Tasman District Council’s environment and planning committee heard submissions to Wakefield’s strategic review earlier this month.
Proposed plan change 58 to the Tasman Resource Management plan indicated several areas in and around the village where growth could occur. while maintaining the village’s character.
It suggested proposed new residential zones north and north-east of Lord Auckland Rd, east of Pitfure Rd and on Edward St and a proposed new rural residential zone where the Tasman Great Taste Trail enters Wakefield with a minimum lot size of 800 square metres.
Flood risk and commercial and industrial growth were also considered.
Hearing committee chairman councillor Brian Ensor said the hearing’s decision would be released next month.
However some of the submissions also led the committee to consider additional changes to planning rules and zoning in Wakefield.
‘‘There were some helpful ideas that came from the hearing which were not part of the original proposal.
‘‘We now need to give people the opportunity to submit feedback on them before we could introduce them into our planning rules.’’
The new proposals include further zoning changes for new residential land or to return land to rural zoning, keeping some of the land at the southern end of the Eighty-Eight Valley in productive use, an indicative walkway through part of the same area, and potential for extra ruralresidential sites beside Tasman’s Great Taste Trail at the southern end of Higgins Road.
The proposals would form a variation to the current considered plan change.
The current plan change would take legal effect in August once decisions were made public. Submitters had right of appeal.
The council’s environmental policy manager Steve Markham said the variation process required investigation and consultation with affected landowners before possible changes were developed and notified for submission. He expected this process to run later this year.