A Dunedin City Council resource consent panel is to this month consider an application to build a large office and residential block on land the council wants to turn into a road.
The vacant land at 41 Wharf St, opposite the Steamer Basin, is within the council's new harbourside development area. It is owned by Arthur Barnett Properties, which bought it four years ago.
Director Tim Barnett said yesterday that he was seeking legal advice in the lead-up to the consent hearing, which is ‘‘tentatively'' set down for March 19.
Last December, the company applied for consent to build a three-storeyed, 1035sq m office and residential building - with 74 car parks - on the land that was once part of the rail shunting yards.
The application challenged the council over changes to the district plan that would designate the site ‘‘recreational''.
Planning consultant Don Anderson, of Paterson Pitts, submitted that commercial office and residential activity was permitted on every other site in the ‘‘inner basin character area'' and that the site had been singled out for ‘‘special'' treatment.
‘‘Certainly, 41 Wharf St is no more suitable for recreational activities than any other property within the inner basin northern character area.''
He considered the rule imposing the recreational designation ‘‘vindictive and unable to withstand the submission process''.
In January this year, there was a new turn of events, when the Arthur Barnett's site was identified by the council as a possible road linking Wharf St with a new on-ramp to the nearby overbridge.
The proposed road - along with other features associated with the harbourside development - was notified as a district plan change, giving the council power to compulsorily acquire the land under the Public Works Act.
Hearings on the plan change are expected to be held in July and, in the meantime, the hearing to consider using the site for an office remains scheduled for March 19.
Five written submissions wait to be heard, including one that objects to the size of the proposed office's car park and the lack of landscaping, and others that consider the office building too big for a ‘‘recreational'' site.
Asked to explain the point of a hearing about building an office on land the council wanted for a road, council chief executive Jim Harland said anyone could apply for a resource consent at any time.
He said the hearings panel would need to take into account ‘‘what the proposed plan change says and how far down the process it is''.
Mr Barnett yesterday appeared keen to continue with the hearing, although he suggested there might be a delay.
‘‘I would have thought that because the resource consent was legally applied for before the designation was done, we'd at least have a chance to hear it.''
