Stop the Stadium president Bev Butler has confirmed the group lodged a letter of appeal to the Environment Court last week seeking to prevent a harbourside arterial route project, without which the proposed Awatea St Stadium would be jeopardised.
The project, aimed at making inner-city roads more efficient, would form a new roading network from Strathallan St to Ravensbourne Rd and include a large raised roundabout-like gyratory at its Frederick St intersection.
Among Stop the Stadium's reasons for appealing to annul the Dunedin City Council's "notice of requirement" - the process by which a designated authority gives notice it is seeking to designate land - were that the planned new infrastructure duplicated existing infrastructure; it was contrary to various objectives and policies of the Dunedin district plan and Otago's regional policy statements and objectives because it failed to recognise available transportation alternatives and to reduce the use of fossil fuels and production of harmful emissions; and it made more appropriate technology less likely in the future.
The new route would isolate the harbour area from the rest of Dunedin and make access to the harbour area more problematic.
In Stop the Stadium's letter of appeal, Ms Butler noted the commissioners had conceded a shorter arterial route through fewer private properties than would be needed to go around the proposed Otago Stadium site would be preferable.
"We are therefore presented with a chicken-and-egg situation in which a non-optimum roading option is authorised on account of a stadium that may not go ahead."
Planning hearing commissioners Roger Tasker, John Lumsden and John Matthews confirmed a notice of requirement for the new route, subject to a list of conditions, on January 9.
It is understood Chalmers Properties has also appealed the notice.
Chalmers Properties and the Dunedin City Council could not be contacted for confirmation or comment yesterday.
A copy of Mayor Peter Chin's letter, seeking Government funding for Dunedin's planned $188 million stadium project, is unlikely to be released before a crucial Dunedin City Council meeting on Monday.
