Tararuas protection plan stalls

Plans to protect Palmerston North's slice of the Tararua Range will remain up in the air until the Turitea wind-farm hearing is over.

The first review of Palmerston North City Council's district plan, which manages land use and development, has begun but it is not yet clear whether it will propose any measures to protect the range's scenic beauty and skyline.

Horowhenua District Council is proposing restrictions on structures' height, which will make it hard to build wind farms.

The city council did not place any development restrictions on the range when it created the plan more than 10 years ago, senior policy planner David Murphy said.

A landscape study identified 19 different natural features within the city council's boundaries.

The next phase, focused on the ranges, should be finished by the end of the year, after the Turitea hearing was complete, he said.

"This is being done at the same time as Turitea so we can have a cross-fertilisation. There's so much money being put into Turitea to assess the landscape, it's useful that we use the outcomes of that."

Mr Murphy said it was too early to say whether the council would propose restrictions preventing more wind turbines on the range.

The review was a balancing act between treating the range as an energy-producing resource and as a significant natural feature.

"The argument coming through from the community is that we've already done our bit for renewable energy through wind farms."

The Horowhenua District Council has identified its slice of the range as one of the district's outstanding natural landscapes.

Proposed district plan changes would see buildings and network utilities higher than three metres classed as a non-complying activity on the range because of the environmental effects.

Submissions on Horowhenua's plan close on October 23.

The Tararua District Council was in the final stages of reviewing its plan but had not gone as far as Horowhenua, manager environmental services Mike Pond said.

The ridgeline of the range behind Tararua was classified as a significant natural feature but the highest point was hard to define and had been a contentious issue since the classification 10 years ago, he said.