Rural village or satellite town: locals prepare for battle

Residents of a sleepy, rural North Canterbury village are mobilising en masse to stop it turning into yet another full-blown satellite town.

Last week, Waimakariri District Council put a private plan change request for an 850-house development at Ohoka out for public submissions.

Rolleston Industrial Developments – owned by the Carter Group’s Philip and Tim Carter – wants to rezone 155.9 hectares of farmland between Whites, Bradleys, and Mill roads to residential land.

The subdivision would be called Ohoka Estate, and built in stages, with most sections between 500 and 1000 square metres. It would also feature shops, a public square, and a school or retirement village.

Ohoka is currently home to mostly larger homes on lifestyle blocks, plus some smaller properties, a domain, community hall, primary school, petrol station and small church. House prices range from about $1.2 million to $3.5m.

Many residents of the quaint little farming village don’t want 850 new neighbours, and say they ‘‘are not going to take it lying down’’.

Tina Dudley has lived on her small Ohoka section for five years, but had dreamed about moving there for many more.

‘‘Ohoka will never recover,’’ she said.

‘‘This will destroy the quaintness, the quietness, the rural-ness of this village. It’s a shame, it’s had 120 years of history that’s just going to be erased.’’

Dudley said she used to work in Rolleston, and had watched it change from open highway to mass traffic.

‘‘They’re getting ready to put the Costco out there . . . It’s another extension of Christchurch, it’s just not rural any more.

‘‘There’s no open spaces, and anybody that does have a bit of space, they’re fighting hook, line and sinker to try and keep it. I don’t want that to happen to Ohoka.’’

Dudley said developers acted like small rural towns needed ‘‘progress’’, but risked destroying what made them special.

‘‘Not everywhere in New Zealand do we need to have big box stores, and tonnes of restaurants.

‘‘We support our locals here, we’ve got a restaurant – we’ve got two of them. They’re dangling a town square, we don’t need a town square – we have our domain, we have markets. We don’t want any of this.’’

Dudley said it was not just a case of ‘‘nimbyism’’ – a not-in-mybackyard mentality.

Ohoka had roughly 600 residents at the moment, she said. Its power grid was close to capacity, and even with the new Northern bypass, the sudden increase in traffic would re-clog the roads.

‘‘We know what we have, and it’s worth fighting for.

‘‘We should have a choice in what happens in our villages, in our suburbs,’’ Dudley said.

Ngaire Borlase has lived in Ohoka for 25 years, and said locals were worried about losing their peaceful enjoyment of the town with so many new houses and so much more traffic.

‘‘We’ll also lose our beautiful dark sky through light pollution – I think that’s a real tragedy that a lot of people are missing.

‘‘When we first came here, the sky was amazing. We used to lie in the field and look up at the stars.’’

Now she could see the glow of Rangiora from her Mill Rd home.

‘‘It’s very disappointing . . . You should be able to choose to live in a rural area, without the threat of a big development being dropped next to you.’’

Borlase said all locals should make submissions pointing out what they treasured about Ohoka – ‘‘and what they fear might be lost’’.

A public meeting last week was packed, Dudley said, but residents had arranged another at Ohoka Hall for Sunday afternoon to help concerned locals make and coordinate submissions to the council.

The Carter Group has been approached for comment.

The group was also behind a controversial 1700-house subdivision outside the small Selwyn town of Lincoln, which was approved by the district council there on an independent commissioner’s recommendation last month.

There are currently about 10,500 new residential sections either approved or going through the rezoning process in Selwyn. Other new subdivisions are also being approved for Waimakariri district, but in smaller numbers.

Besides the Ohoka development, the 209-section Bellgrove subdivision in northeast Rangiora was recently fast-tracked for development.

Submissions on the private plan change at Ohoka close on Friday, August 5.

CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF Tina Dudley and Ngaire Borlase outside the Gate Keeper’s Lodge, part of Ohoka’s quaint rural history. At the moment, Ohoka is largely rural properties and lifestyle blocks. Top, Ohoka farmers market.