The controversial proposal for a landfill near Brighton Beach is back on track.
The consent application for the municipal landfill for Dunedin was no longer on hold and a decision on notification was due by the end of the month, an Otago Regional Council spokesman said yesterday.
The Dunedin City Council had supplied the outstanding information for the application, he said.
"The next step in the process is to make a decision on notification, which we anticipate will be made by the end of this month," he said.
The DCC angered many in the seaside community of Brighton when it went ahead with its decades-old plans for a landfill at Smooth Hill last year.
A petition to "stop the Brighton landfill" was signed by more than 2000 people.
The application temporarily stalled late last year when the ORC put it on hold and called for more information.
Subsequently, amid community concerns, the DCC dramatically scaled back the size of its planned landfill.
It halved its footprint to address environmental concerns about the site.
Nevertheless, the ORC rejected the DCC’s claim it did not need to update its 1992 assessment of the location of its proposed landfill.
And the ORC kept the application on hold and issued a second request for information in June.
It said the information had been lacking since it put the consent application on hold in October last year and offered to meet the DCC to sort it out.
At the time, the ORC noted a discussion of possible alternative waste management options could satisfy its concerns.
Now, the DCC’s application team said the expiring Green Island Landfill remained its principal alternative option.
But its updated assessment considered and rejected both exporting waste from the district and developing a waste to energy facility.
Saddle Hill Community Board chairman Scott Weatherall, who has been at the forefront of the community opposition, said the community would put its faith in a "sound and robust" resource consent process.
