Contact: homebushresidents@gmail.com
Homebush Road Residents Group
Help us save the Ngauranga green gateway to Wellington.
Keep the bush in Homebush - Dominion Post (2.04.09)
RESIDENTS WITH A CAUSE: Some of the residents opposing a change of use of a patch of bush from open space to residential are, from left, Lisa Mahu and Francois, 4, Tracy O'Halloran, Ann Corcoran, Murray McElhinney, Alison Dixie, Peter Henderson and Nick Dixie.
Khandallah residents fear a tract of native bush will be gobbled up by developers, opening the way for more development in the area.
Property developer Eyal Aharoni is applying to have a section off Homebush Rd rezoned to build a housing subdivision.
But residents of the quiet street say any subdivision will be an eyesore, ruin the native bush and increase traffic.
"This proposal will result in the loss of a valuable and irreplaceable pocket of regenerating native bush and open space which ... gives pleasure to a large number of local residents [and] other Wellington residents and visitors," Homebush Rd residents group spokesman Nick Dixie says in a written submission to Wellington City Council.
Mr Aharoni's company, Primeproperty Development, bought the land in 2006 and now wants to have a 1.2-hectare portion redesignated as residential.
It intended to subdivide the 1.2-hectare portion - about 8 per cent of a section owned by Primeproperty - into 16 allotments of varying sizes, Mr Aharoni's lawyer, Andrew Beatson, said.
The land is zoned as open space.
Mr Dixie and his wife, Alison, bought their house 30 years ago on the understanding the land was an open reserve which could not be built on. "The district plan states that this is land valued for its natural character and informal open spaces.
"It is, and has always been, the understanding of the residents that it is the district plan's intention to maintain such land as unbuilt or natural state," the residents' submission states.
But Mr Beatson told a council panel considering the rezoning application yesterday that the land had low ecological value and it was not the role of private landowners to provide recreation space for the community. "Utilising the site for aesthetic values or to 'provide a public view' is not the most appropriate means of achieving sustainable management."
But Mr Dixie, whose group includes 30 other residents, says in his submission that Mr Aharoni purchased the land knowing it was zoned as open space.
"It is extremely cynical for him to now advance an argument that privately owned land should not be zoned open reserve and we question his plans for the remaining 92 per cent of the land."
The hearing continues today.