In mid-September, the Dunedin City Council gave Port Otago the go-ahead for a large earthworks project above Back Beach at Port Chalmers, albeit with a string of conditions attached, including extensive landscaping requirements.
Remedial earthwork, in the form of cliff benching, is required below Flagstaff Hill to remove about 45,000cu m of rock over up to 12 months, equating to about 4500 truck movements.
Port Otago has lodged an appeal with the Environment Court in Christchurch, outlining that landscaping of the area should be limited to only the area where earthworks are carried out, the port company's lawyer Len Anderson said.
''The [resource consent] decisions are unworkable and unreasonable as they require an area of land not part of the consent, and is extremely steep and variable in nature, and covered in gorse and broom, to be landscaped and planted,'' the application said.
The appeals cover two of four conditions in the landscape plan; part of a total 24 conditions Port Otago must adhere to.
Implementing the two conditions created a ''real risk'' the works would adversely affect the land stability, the application said. The project, estimated at more than $500,000, was not expected to change Flagstaff's profile nor would any work be done to its mid or upper sections.
