In April the Cambridge Chamber facilitated a stakeholder's consultation with Waipā District Council and consultants, Beca, to look at the current draft plan and enable feedback around Plan Change 19 in Carters Flat.
Technical investigations have commenced, and the plan change is being prepared.
The Plan Change and local area plan are to be notified at the same time but to be kept as two distinct processes.
Waipā District Council is proposing a change to the Waipā District Plan and is seeking your feedback on the draft Section 32 Evaluation Report in accordance with the Resource Management Act.
Council has created a Draft Local Area Plan for Carter’s Flat, to help inform any opportunities and constraints in the area. This then has informed a few changes to the District Plan.
For those interested, the key documentation is available at the end of this post, for ease of access.
As we see it, there are several key issues that Chamber members and/or Carter’s Flat businesses/land owners should/could be considering:
· Firstly, the plan change uplifts the deferred Commercial zoning for the whole of Carter’s Flat.
· This means that retail above a certain size, and residential at above ground level, will both be complying activities which no longer require resource consent.
· They propose redefining ‘large format retail’ as 400m2 and above (this was driven by the desire to align with other councils and HCC in particular). Any new retail shops smaller than 400m2 would still require resource consent.
· The majority of our ‘boutique’ retailers in the CBD are smaller than 200m2, so this should protect from similar scale shops setting up in Carter’s Flat in competition to the CBD. Larger CBD businesses (or their competitors), could likely relocate to Carter’s Flat.
· Existing businesses in Carter’s Flat, particularly those which generate noise or odours, may be concerned about the introduction of residential tenancies in the area, as this is likely to generate complaints despite those businesses having existing use rights.
· The requirement for any new or altered buildings to incorporate high levels of glazing makes sense (people-friendly environment as you can see into and out of buildings). However, if you take the example of the Briscoes building in CBD, where even on the side which has windows, Briscoes has covered these so that there is no transparency.
The point raised, is really a question of how the rules are enforced, and whether council can control what tenants choose to do once the space is built.
There is the opportunity to provide feedback on this proposed plan change by Thursday 7 July 2022.
The Chamber encourage stakeholders take the time to consider the plans, and are available for discussion should you require. Please reach out to Neda Bolouri at Beca with any questions or queries: neda.bolouri@beca.com or phone 07 838 0516 or 021 670 389.
