Green gateway plans under fire

Landowners are baulking at the Far North District Council's proposed planning measures to save the green gateway to Kerikeri.

Bill Fenton says members of the Kerikeri Waipapa planning association and affected landowners have, after meetings with the council's chief planner, taken a position seeking identification of areas and new commercial activities over which the the council wants landscaping controls.

He says landowners will support new zone rules that only capture the listed proposed commercial developments.

Landowners won't support what is seen as the present wide scope that the proposed rules will affect, the depth of control, "land confiscation" and screening requirements proposed. They won't support the loss of landowners' rights and the added costs that will be suffered by landowners under these proposed overlay rules, he says

"Whether the council chooses to listen is, of course, another matter. The landowners would strongly recommend that it does," he says.

He says they believe the community's concerns are limited to large-scale ugly commercial developments. Some of which have been long established and the more recently established "as of right" developments mainly in the rural production zone due to this zones permissive rules.

"The landowners believe the council has no right to steal land."

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