One third of Pegasus sections are in doubt

A question mark hangs over a third of Pegasus Town, north of Christchurch, after the partial completion of a $500,000 geotechnical study.

Pegasus developer Infinity Investment Group ordered the report early this month after the Waimakariri District Council required property owners at the site to provide a geotech land report to obtain building consents. Infinity then commissioned a sitewide report to avoid the need for section buyers to obtain individual reports.

General manager Marc Bretherton said yesterday that a preliminary report had found two-thirds of the development’s sections were TC2 (technical category 2), but more work was required on the remaining one-third of sections, which were in the north of the subdivision. More than 600 residents now live in the town, which is seen as providing muchneeded land for Christchurch householders red-zoned by the earthquakes of 2010 and last year.

The new North Canterbury town was thought to have escaped serious damage in the quakes after Infinity spent millions remediating the land to better prepare it to withstand quakes.

Bretherton said further ground work and analysis would be carried out on the unclassified part of the subdivision, with the final re- sult expected in about six weeks. The preliminary results did not suggest grounds for concern about the unclassified area, he said.

Potential buyers of those sections were being told Infinity would supply a section with title, but a title could be issued only if the section received a TC2 classification.