Resource consent has been granted to enable development of a depot in Portsmouth Dr.
If the development proceeds, it will include engineering spaces for daily maintenance, offices for administration, a 50,000-litre diesel storage tank, a wash bay and yard space for buses.
Go Bus Transport would not leave its Princes St depot until it was clear it was no longer available, chief operating officer Nigel Piper said.
The depot next to the Market Reserve in Princes St has been mooted as potentially suitable for a housing development.
Kainga Ora has yet to make a call on whether it will buy the land there from the Dunedin City Council to develop housing.
PlaceMakers moved to its new home at Carisbrook in July, creating the possibility the bus depot could shift to Portsmouth Dr.
"It is not as central as the current site and there have been a number of service delivery compromises, but the site itself can work as a bus depot," Mr Piper said.
Go Bus would reconfirm the city council’s intention to make the Princes St land available for housing before it made any commitment to develop the Portsmouth Dr site, he said.
The lapse date of the resource consent is October 4, 2027.
A spokesman for the city council said it was continuing to work with Kainga Ora about a potential purchase of the Princes St site.
The council confirmed in July last year an agreement had been signed with Kainga Ora for it to explore potential for housing there.
City council chief executive Sandy Graham said at the time the potential housing development was an exciting project that would, if confirmed, deliver a significant and much-needed boost to the city’s housing supply.
It could make the best use of a prime central-city location, she said.
Kainga Ora Otago-Southland regional director Kerrie Young said a range of factors had to be considered before any land purchase could be confirmed.
A union for bus drivers has historically raised doubts about the desirability of shifting the depot.
"Foresight and wisdom over a century ago, upheld by the last 30 or more city councils, has placed the city’s bus depot at the heart of the city’s bus network," Dunedin Tramways Union branch president Alan Savell said in July.
It sat alongside nearly all of the city’s bus routes and that made it ideal for both driver and bus changeovers, he said.
