Expansion plans in North Canty
Rangiora and Kaiapoi would have 450 hectares of land to build new housing on – and more space for medium-density developments – under a newly proposed district plan.
About 15,000 new homes need to be built in North Canterbury over the next 30 years, according to the Waimakariri District Council.
The existing district plan, effectively a rulebook for where different types of developments can happen, has been in place since 2005.
The council is consulting with the community on the new plan. It has already received about 70 public submissions.
Under the proposed plan, several existing residential areas would be rezoned to allow medium-density housing, including almost all of Kaiapoi north of the Kaiapoi River, as well as parts of central Rangiora.
The council said the areas being rezoned were located within walking distance of town centres, schools, open space and transport routes.
‘‘The district plan as proposed enables more medium-density development, but it doesn’t require
it,’’ Waimakariri mayor Dan Gordon said.
He said the provisions for this type of housing were in response to, among other things, demand for smaller housing types and ensuring development happened near to existing or planned infrastructure.
‘‘The plan has been written to help ensure that provisions are in place to maintain [the] qualities that make the district attractive to live in.’’
The plan has also outlined large chunks of mostly rural land where Rangiora and Kaiapoi could expand to in the future.
The council expects between 5000 and 6700 homes could be built on this newly zoned land, which covers about 450 collectively. The zones are to the east and west of Rangiora, and in Kaiapoi’s northeast.
This new land will be a mixture of medium-density and traditional residential housing.
Waimakariri district councillor Kirstyn Barnett, who holds the council’s district plan development portfolio, said the location of these new development zones had been identified for some time, and the council had been working with the present landowners over the past two years.
Barnett said there needed to be an updated district plan to cater for the expected growth of the district ‘‘in a manner that’s wellplanned, integrated and sustainable’’.
About 66,000 people lived in the Waimakariri district in 2018, according to that year’s census.
Projections from Statistics NZ suggests the population could hit 83,000 by 2048, a 35.4 per cent increase. By comparison, Christchurch city’s population is only forecast to go up by 20.8 per cent in the same period.
Housing zones have also been simplified in the new plan.
The current district plan has seven different zones, which are mostly named numerically. The new plan proposes to simplify the plan to four residential zones, named medium-density, general, large lot and a settlement zone.
The Waimakariri council’s public consultation document notes each zone is based on the ‘‘desired characteristics’’ for the wider area, ‘‘which may be different from the existing character, for example in areas where intensification may take place’’.
For the medium-density and general residential zones, the minimum section size would be 200 square metres and 500sqm respectively – which is 100sqm less than both of the equivalent zones in the current plan.
A Waimakariri District Council spokeswoman said under the current district plan, Rangiora and Kaiapoi had capacity for about 2000 more sites in what are effectively the current general and medium-density zones.
The new proposed plan would increase this capacity to more than 8200.
Some 855 new homes had been consented in Waimakariri in 2021 at the end of September, according to Statistics NZ. For the same period in 2020 and 2019, the number was 552 and 666 respectively.