The company had withdrawn the proposal from the fast-track process just over a week ago, but had now reapplied.
Port Otago chief executive Kevin Winders said it was a technical issue with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).
Port Otago had filed its substantive application, following on from its referral application. The EPA had 15 working days to review it and say whether, according to the criteria, it was a complete application.
‘‘On day 14 they rang us up and said that there was a discrepancy between our referral application and our substantive application just to do with square metres of warehouse, and our bulk break area. It was very minor,’’ he said.
‘‘We thought on a 40ha site it wasn’t an issue, but the EPA decided it was an issue, so we had a choice of either withdraw the application, amend it, and go again, or let them make a decision each day to either accept or decline it.’’
The decision was made to withdraw the application and fix the anomaly and a week later the application was now back in the fast-track process.
Mr Winders said the EPA would consider the application in totality.
He hoped the approval would be given by the panel in August-September and Port Otago would get some boots on the ground by the end of the year.
Although it was a 20-year project it was hoped to have the first stage done within 18 months, he said.
In the substantive application, the economic benefits of the proposal were outlined.
The new port - between Dukes Rd and the Silver Stream - was said to bring an economic benefit of 136 high-value new jobs, while construction would bring up to 1705 fulltime equivalent jobs over an indicative 10-year period. It would also bring a $162.6million value to the country’s GDP.
There would be an initial uplift of 15,000 containers a year to rail, which would lead to a minimum of 15,000 one way or 30,000 return truck journeys to Port Chalmers being taken off the road.
The application said existing logistics operations at Port Chalmers and surrounding depots were increasingly constrained.
Port Chalmers was operating near maximum logistics capacity, with geographical constraints preventing any further expansion of the port unless significant harbour reclamation was carried out.
The distribution of container and freight operations to warehouses throughout Dunedin via truck has provided some relief to the capacity constraints. However, these operations created a significant load on the urban transport network and were relatively inefficient, with poor resilience.
‘‘An example of such poor resilience is evident in the fact that the lease of Port Otago’s existing offsite container depot (the Strathallan St depot, which is currently operating at full capacity) was to be terminated in 2030 with no right of renewal,’’ the application said.
‘‘A new location for the container depot is required to provide a fit-for-purpose replacement on a suitable site that will ensure operations can continue without disruption.’’
A report said increased traffic around the inland port from staff vehicles would not contribute to noticeable effects on the Mosgiel road network because it would not coincide with the commuter peak periods.
Following full development of the inland port, average daily heavy vehicle volumes on Dukes Rd North close to the site entrance could increase by about 230 vehicles per day (vpd).
Heavy vehicle volumes on Gordon Rd through central Mosgiel could increase from about 500 vpd currently to about 650 vpd, which represented a change of less than 1% of the existing daily volumes.
The inland port project is a joint venture between Port Otago and Dynes Transport.
