The subdivision of an undersized rural Mosgiel property into two smaller lots would mean more sustainable farm land usage and much stronger protection against the potential spread of urban development.
That was the message from the owner of a 9.58ha rural property at 25 Ashton St, Mosgiel, to a Dunedin City Council consent hearings committee yesterday.
Property owner Alison Rutherford wants to create two allotments, the smaller of the two about 3.5ha, containing the category 2 classified Johnston Homestead, the remaining land to have provision for a new house to be built on a specified site.
The historic homestead, a large, two-storeyed building, was almost completely hidden by surrounding trees, and ‘‘judicious plantings’’ could ‘‘legitimately mitigate any potential adverse visual impact a new dwelling might create’’, registered surveyor Simon Jenkin told the committee.
In his evidence as advocate for Ms Rutherford, Mr Jenkin said the application also proposed that further subdivision be prohibited.
The 9.5ha property was ‘‘not even remotely an economic unit now’’ and its management was part-time, Mr Jenkin said. But, coupled with the Heritage NZ level of management needed for the homestead, it needed more than ‘‘part-time’’ attention.
By subdividing the site into what had been recognised by council planning as a realistic ‘‘lifestyle block’’, the potential for the land management of the two sites would be improved.
The combination of better land management facilitation and the certainty of no further subdivision was ‘‘in full accord with the intent’’ of the Dunedin city plan and the 2GP (the proposed section generation Dunedin city district plan).
The site was zoned rural in the dunedin district plan, and, in area, both proposed allotments were non-complying under both the operative plan and the 2GP, Mr Jenkin said.
‘‘The main driving force for the application was the protection of the very values and amenity that both council and some of the submitters are concerned might be lost’’.
In her report, DCC planner Lianne Darby opposed Ms Rutherford’s application and recommended the committee decline consent for what she said was a non-complying activity.
Any actual or potential adverse effects on the environment from the subdivision and development of 25 Ashton St would be ‘‘more than minor’’ because it would mean fragmenting an under-sized rural-zoned lot into two ‘‘even smaller rural sites’’, Ms Darby said.
The new lots would be more consistent with lifestyle units where the productive worth of the land was secondary to the residential use.
The site had high-class soils and, while the development proposal did not remove high-class soils from the site, the new house would cover a portion of them and remove them from production.
But, should the committee grant consent, Ms Darby recommended conditions including vegetation to a height which would screen the new building site and, eventually, the new building.
She said subdivision and residential development should be restricted, with no further subdivision of the site and no second residential unit on the un-subdivided site.
In a submission on behalf of Our Food Network Dunedin, Andy Barratt also voiced concerns about the loss of high-class soils.
He said history showed that on such small blocks in the rural zone, the house and curtilage tended to ensure the developments effectively ruled out the use of the entire block for productive purposes.
The committee expects to release its decision on the application in about two weeks.
