Napier Rd land promoted

Key opportunity to help resolve housing issues, say developers

Advocates of a proposed residential development on Napier Rd adjoining Palmerston North’s urban area claim they hold the key to a short-term opportunity to help resolve a demand for new housing.

The city council has received a private plan change request to have the land rezoned at 160 Napier Rd from rural to residential use.

Planning consultant Paul Thomas said the 12.5 hectare site, one-third of which is currently used as a plant nursery, could yield 180 sections, including 110 homes in the short term.

He said it was well connected to public transport routes and the Manawatū River shared pathway.

But he and developer Matt Currie of Homewood Property were mystified the proposal was not identified as a key opportunity in the city council and Horizons Regional Council draft future development strategy.

Their submissions were among some 138 received on the draft strategy, with 33 of them heard by a joint steering group yesterday.

The draft strategy covers a range of plans for the city’s development, including how much the city should encourage high-rise residential buildings, urban intensification and greenfields housing, and proposes rezoning more land around the city’s fringes for industrial use.

Thomas said he believed the council had under-estimated how much new housing the city would need in the very near future, and was surprised the city was not paying closer attention to the capacity of the Napier Rd proposal to help meet that need.

Another submitter, lawyer John Maassen, said the subdivision would be “low-hanging fruit” in an area already well-connected to the city.

Currie said the land would be easy and economical to connect to existing infrastructure, which made it a cost-effective option for the city council.

“The location of the land is good, given that there is not much other land identified on this side of the city except for Whakarongo and the Napier Rd extension,” Currie said.

“Anyone observing the site would immediately see it is a logical addition to the urban area.”

The submitters all acknowledged that the proposal still needed to go through a full and thorough process to have the zoning change adopted into the city’s District Plan, and said they were not looking for a short cut.

But Currie said if the land was not identified in the future development strategy, that could be an impediment at the rezoning hearing that would have to consider whether the proposal would be in line with the final strategy.