Showgrounds project still in consents phase

Almost a year after plans for a retail development at Showgrounds Hill in Timaru were announced, the proposal remains in limbo.

It was November 28, 2019, when the Timaru District Council’s holdings company, Timaru District Holdings Ltd, announced it had sold, subject to due diligence, the 12-hectare site to Auckland-based developer Redwood QT.

At the time Redwood QT chairman Tony Gapes hoped work would begin in September 2020, subject to the issuing of resource and building consents.

However, a council spokesperson confirmed an independent commissioner was ‘‘still awaiting the request for information to be completed prior to consideration whether it (resource consent applications) will be publicly notified or not’’.

In September, The Timaru Herald reported that the council had received a revised consent application, prepared for Redwood QT.

TDHL chairman Ian Fitzgerald said this week the due diligence period ‘‘runs until the purchaser has obtained a resource consent or not’’.

‘‘There are no holdups, it’s just that the scale and complexity of a resource consent such as this take time for the regulatory authority to process,’’ Fitzgerald said.

‘‘For TDHL it is simply a matter of the letting the process run its course.’’

The proposal, if successful, will turn the site into a 34,000-square-metre retail centre.

The Showgrounds Hill proposal has proved controversial with many Timaru CBD retailers, who are concerned the development would take away retail activity from the town centre and into the ‘‘big box’’ development.

Public meetings against the proposal have been held, along with a 576-signature petition against the development presented to council, while the Timaru Town Centre Ratepayers’ Action Group (TCRAG) has been established as an incorporated society to stop the sale of the Showgrounds Hill site.

TCRAG spokesman Shaun Stockman said the group had received a number of documents from the council and was waiting for its legal team to go through them.

‘‘We’ve been on pause for the past month or so while we’ve been awaiting the documents,’’ Stockman said.

‘‘However, we feel it is in the best interests of everybody that the consent goes out for public consultation. The impact of this proposed development on the community and on local businesses is potentially huge.’’

The council also received two reports on the proposal earlier in 2020 – from Property Economics (PE) and Market Economics (ME) – which both expressed concern that the development’s impact on the CBD could be significant. PE’s report says ‘‘there is simply not enough retail expenditure generated on an annualised basis to feasibly sustain two retail destinations in Timaru of such size’’.

Redwood QT chairman Tony Gapes has previously said it would spend over $100 million to construct the centre, much of which will end up in the local economy, and create over 600 long-term jobs.

Gapes declined to comment further when approached by The Timaru Herald.