Time to stop developers encroaching on the countryside

THE District Plan is designed to set aside areas of the district for urbanisation, industry, rural land and the like.

I find it completely on the nose that developers think they can buy up rural general land and go through the resource consent process, with the view to chopping it up into lots for their own personal gain.

The primary purpose of rural general land is for rural general activities, e.g. farming. Anything other is just greed and completely unsustainable.

As this has been allowed to occur on several occasions, the value of rural general land has shot up, making a return on the land value uneconomic.

If the councils and the courts refused subdivisions on this land then the price should ultimately fall, as there would be the realisation the land use could only be for the purpose it was intended, as described in the plan.

Subdivisions on this land designation need to cease, particularly in Queenstown.

In 200 years, rural general land for farming purposes will be highly sought after for a different reason — food production.

Now that’s a radical idea — the use of land for what it was intended. Leave the countryside alone.

Dave Hanan

Dunedin

Recycling information

I TOO used to put all my scrap paper in a supermarket plastic bag and put it in my recycle bin, until I was informed by the Dunedin City Council that all full plastic bags in the recycle bins went to the landfill.

Apparently, the bin contents get emptied on to a conveyor belt and all scrap paper gets blown/collected by other means.

It is a shame that we ratepayers are not generally privy to that information, especially when there must be thousands of us who ‘‘presort’’ recyclables. Suzanne Lane

Waldronville ..................................

BIBLE READING: And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. — 1 John 5:11.