The University of Otago has put the brakes on plans to develop a $5.5 million plot of Christchurch land in the city's proposed health precinct.
Work on the plot ''has been put on hold and the consultant team stood down'', it says.
However, the university would collaborate with three Canterbury organisations to develop a ''health and research education facility'' in the precinct, a Christchurch Central Development Unit spokeswoman said.
The university, alongside the Canterbury District Health Board, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology and the University of Canterbury, would form an advisory council for the health precinct.
An agenda document for the university capital development committee this week said the university planned to rent space in the proposed research building.
Once an existing building in the precinct was ''upgraded and extended'', the university would also plan to ''take additional space'' there, the agenda says.
''Health Sciences have been asked for a business case to support the extra space being sought and the lease costs.''
Three years ago, the Crown indicated it might buy the university's Oxford Tce property as part of plans to establish the health precinct in that area, but that final decisions had yet to be made.
The development unit spokeswoman said the Crown had ''not purchased land from the University of Otago within the health precinct''.
The unit was working with the university to secure land, she said.
If the university did want to develop its plot, which was in a part of the city specially designated by Christchurch's recovery plan, university officials would first ''need to obtain the approval of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery'', the spokeswoman said.