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Two weeks have been set aside in autumn for public hearings into the Dunedin City Council’s contentious Smooth Hill landfill proposal.
An Otago Regional Council spokesman said the council had booked the Dunedin Centre for two weeks from May 16, with a different venue available for a third week of hearings if necessary.
The panel of independent decision-makers had also been selected, the spokesman said.
They were: Hawke’s Bay engineer, policy planner and expert commissioner Rob van Voorthuysen, who would act as chairman, former Wanaka lawyer Jan Caunter, and independent planning consultant Rosalind Day-Cleavin, he said.
In total, 147 submitters indicated through submissions that they wanted to be heard, and now that the hearing date and venue had been confirmed, the ORC had asked them to confirm by the beginning of March whether they would attend the hearings, he said.
The overwhelming majority of 283 submitters opposed the DCC’s consent application for the proposed landfill near Brighton last year — two submissions were in support, nine were neutral and 272 opposed.
The effect a landfill would have on Otokia Creek and its estuary at Brighton Beach, its impact on the broader environment, a lack of communication with the community, and aviation safety at nearby Dunedin Airport were among the concerns raised.
When the DCC lodged its application in 2020, it said with the city’s Green Island landfill nearing capacity, detailed investigations had been carried out over the past two years to assess whether the Smooth Hill site was an appropriate site for a modern landfill.
That work had concluded Smooth Hill was suitable and on that basis the consent application was lodged with the ORC.
While Dunedin aimed to be a zero waste city, and the DCC encouraged waste reduction and recycling, the city would need a way to dispose of waste for many years to come, the DCC said.