Delayed projects can go ahead after long-awaited agreement
Projects worth millions of dollars delayed because of “bureaucratic idiocy” around the regional council’s controversial interpretation of a water bottling decision can now go ahead after a work-around was agreed.
Environment Canterbury (ECan) stopped approving consents in 2022 for activities that intercepted groundwater.
The decision delayed housing developments, wetland projects and construction of new roads and stormwater basins worth an estimated $100 million across the Christchurch city area alone.
The groundwater consent freeze followed a Court of Appeal ruling that overturned High Court support of ECan allowing Belfast-based company Cloud Ocean Water to take water for bottling by using a consent issued for other purposes.
The Supreme Court in November upheld the Court of Appeal ruling, following an appeal from Cloud Ocean.
The judgment meant Cloud Ocean, and another water bottler Southridge Holdings, could use water for the purpose of the original consents – wool scouring and meat processing respectively – but not for bottling water.
ECan interpreted that to mean it could not approve any new wetlands or stormwater projects that encroach on the groundwater because it would be deemed as “taking” water from the site.
That interpretation was heavily criticised by planners and councils, with an engineer labelling it as “bureaucratic idiocy” and Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger saying it was “crazy”.
Christchurch City Council and Waimakariri District Council sought a joint legal opinion that said ECan had incorrectly interpreted the court decision, but ECan continued to stick to its own legal interpretation.
ECan decided in February to pursue a plan change, which would allow the projects to go ahead, but it is expected to take until at least the end of the year to go through.
In the meantime, the city council and ECan have agreed another way forward.
City Council head of three waters Brent Smith said an amendment had been made to the council’s existing community water take consent, allowing it to use part of the existing unused allocation, which was earmarked for future growth, to progress its delayed stormwater projects.
He said the consent allowed the taking and use of groundwater for institutional, amenity and processing activities, and the two councils agreed that stormwater wetlands fell into one or more of these categories.
This method would be used until the plan change was complete and operational, which Smith said the council believed would take no longer than five years.
Council projects that can now go ahead include the Waitaki St wetlands, which have been delayed by two years, and the Otūkaikino wetlands in Belfast, which were delayed for six months.
Some projects including the Highsted wetlands have already been redesigned.
Smith said there were also various other projects being built by developers that had also been delayed.
He was not able to say how much the delays had cost the council because final costings would not be known until the work was tendered.
Smith said it was good a consenting pathway had been found and agreed to.
Mauger said last week that the issue had been holding up so much work and it had been “driving us up the wall”.