New homes on Otago Peninsula could soon come with a strict new planning rule - no cats.
The suggestion has come from environmental group Save the Otago Peninsula (Stop), which wants to control the peninsula's cat population to protect wildlife in the area.
The group, in a submission to the Dunedin City Council on a proposed two-lot Macandrew Bay subdivision, has called for the no-cats rule to be included as a condition of any consent.
That would prevent future owners from bringing their cats with them, Stop spokeswoman Lala Frazer believed.
The group was pushing for the new rule because the subdivision at 640 Portobello Rd was close to a scientific reserve with significant wildlife values, she said.
Stop could seek the consent condition whenever new subdivisions were proposed near sensitive wildlife areas, she said.
In time, she hoped the peninsula would become free of all ''predators'', including cats.
''We certainly don't want owners with cats adjoining the reserve. All the other neighbours are very aware of that and none of them keep cats.''
The no-cats concept was becoming more common elsewhere in New Zealand and was often promoted by developers themselves, she said.
Stop had tried once before to have the no-cats rule included as a consent condition for a peninsula subdivision, without success, but Mrs Frazer hoped the idea would eventually catch on.
The property's owner declined to comment yesterday, and Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group chairman Brendon Cross was also reluctant to be drawn into the debate.
Council resource consents manager Alan Worthington said the council's hearings committee ''might be able'' to consider such a condition, but doing so could also be problematic.
''It comes with some difficulties, I suspect, in terms of being able to enforce it.''
It could also throw more fuel on the fire of the debate that erupted last year when economist, businessman and philanthropist Gareth Morgan launched a campaign to control cats.
The proposed subdivision will be considered on October 21 and a council planner has recommended consent be declined, because the site would be ''significantly undersized'' for residential development and would create an ''undesirable'' precedent.
