Council received a submission from Ambury Properties Limited to the Proposed District Plan (Stage 1) seeking to rezone 176 hectares in Ohinewai as Industrial, Business and Residential zoning. Ambury Properties Limited sought from the independent Hearings Panel that its submission be heard six months earlier than was scheduled, with an earlier decision on its submission. The Hearings Panel held a pre-hearing to discuss this matter, along with five other submitters also seeking rezoning in and around Ohinewai.
The Hearings Panel formed the preliminary view that they would agree to Ambury’s request, subject to several procedural modifications. The key outcomes of the pre-hearing conference were:
- That all the submissions requesting zoning changes for Ohinewai should be considered at the same hearing;
- Development of a comprehensive process was needed to ensure that the reporting planners could make informed recommendations. The detailed technical assessment to support the rezoning would need to be received by Council by 1 December 2019 to allow Council to analyse the information and form recommendations, and a hearing was scheduled for 8 June 2020; and
- The submissions on Ohinewai would be re-notified for further submissions to ensure that all interested parties (that meet the Resource Management Act requirements for a further submitter) can participate in the hearing.
In order to ensure that all parties with an interest in the Ohinewai rezoning submissions could participate in Hearing 19 Ohinewai rezoning, the Hearings Panel directed that the six original submissions seeking rezoning at Ohinewai be re-notified for further submissions.
The submissions seeking rezoning in Ohinewai included:
• Ambury Properties Limited [764]
• Planning Focus Limited [383]
• Shand Properties Limited [738]
• Ohinewai Land Limited [428]
• Ohinewai Area Committee [793]
• Ribbonwood Family Trust [863]
Further submissions on Ohinewai rezoning submissions closed on 7 November 2019.