Boundary shift appeals

Appeals against the proposed Palmerston North and Manawatu boundary change will be heard at the beginning of March.

Local government commissioners will travel to Feilding to hear the 21 appeals on March 1 and 2. A total of 48 people and organisations, including the city and district councils, have asked to be heard.

A joint boundary committee decided to allow the city’s extension into the district in November after considering about 200 submissions.

The councils have promoted the change in the interests of economic growth. The extended boundary is intended to ease development constraints around the airport by bring- ing more land into the city, and to protect the future rural ring road improving distribution links.

Opponents are against including more productive but floodable land within the city, are worried about the future viability of a smaller Manawatu district, and in Linton and Kairanga there are concerns the new boundary slices through communities of interest.

The two councils have also appealed against the decision.

The commissioners who will make the final decision about the boundary lines are chairman Basil Morrison, formerly Hauraki mayor and president of Local Government New Zealand, with Pike River Royal Commission executive director Anne Carter, and former Local Government Commission chairman Grant Kirby.