Residents sceptical of expansion plans
Residents in a quiet Christchurch subdivision are concerned plans to expand a neighbouring shopping centre will lead to dozens of trucks navigating their narrow streets each day.
Developer Glen Percasky is assuring residents this will not happen, but some are sceptical.
Percasky and his brother, Max, want to more than double the size of the 3.5-hectare Homebase complex on Marshland Rd in Shirley.
They have asked for an additional 4.8ha of land, which they own, to the north of the centre towards QEII Drive, to be rezoned from residential to commercial.
The block also includes an adjoining section at Sanctuary Gardens, a street in the Clearbrook Palms subdivision next door.
Residents believe the section has been included to provide another access into the development through the residential area for trucks servicing the centre.
But Percasky said there would not be any access from Clearbrook Palms to Homebase. ‘‘It’s a closedoff community and if we put access through there we would lower the lifestyle of the people.’’
He said the only reason the Sanctuary Gardens section was included in the plan change application was because it was on the same title as a 1ha block behind it.
That 1ha block will form part of Homebase, but the Sanctuary Gardens section will not.
The T-shape section had been designed that way by a previous owner to provide access to Sanctuary Gardens if the land behind it was developed into residential sections, he said.
Long-time Clearbrook Palms resident Peter Retimanu said he was cynical about Percasky’s assurances.
He has put up with noisy forklifts working behind his property, which backs onto the existing Homebase, for years. Although he was not against the expansion, he did not want to see heavy trucks barrelling through.
Percasky said he understood why people were concerned, and he would be asking for the plan change to include a caveat that there would be no access from Clearbrook Palms to Homebase.
Most of the 68 submissions received by the Christchurch City Council opposed the plan change, with many stating the Sanctuary Gardens access as the reason.
Percasky said he would have built a house on the section and sold it, but a sewer pipe running through the middle would need to moved and that was too costly.
He planned to keep the fence up between the Sanctuary Gardens section and Homebase and landscape the small section into something that was easy to maintain. Any access between the two would be completely cut off.
‘‘There is no way we will add anything on it that relates to the commercial development.’’
The Palms Shopping Centre, which Glen and Max Percasky developed and no longer own, has also opposed the Homebase expansion. In a submission, Palms owner AMP Capital Palms Ltd has asked for the proposal to be rejected in its entirety because it did not adequately assess or manage adverse effects on the transport network and public and private infrastructure.
Percasky said he believed both The Palms and Homebase could coexist and even complement each other. ‘‘We are not going to make or break The Palms.’’
Percasky said he had not yet had talks with possible tenants because until the District Plan was changed he had nothing to sell.
A retail assessment, submitted as part of the plan change, talks about large-format retail over
20,000 square metres and a
4000sqm supermarket at the site. The development would impact on existing centres in the region but would not affect the viability of those centres, the assessment said.
The initial submission period closed in November but affected parties now have until February 1 to make a further submission.
There will be a hearing and the city council will make the final decision.