For months, the Dunedin City Council has been under fire for its interpretation of rules about potential contamination of soil from historical use of lead paint on houses. Developers have called the approach overly cautious and say it adds unnecessary expense to redevelopment.
Meanwhile, the council is seeking input from students, developers, landowners and the public generally about a proposed North Dunedin spatial plan, signalling more intensive development should be encouraged in some areas.
That could lead to old student flats making way for taller townhouses or apartments.
NZ Property Solutions director Lyndon Fairbairn said the council’s stance on lead paint was a big handbrake to development in the area, ‘‘particularly given the sheer number of older timber homes sitting on redevelopment sites that are now becoming very difficult and expensive to remove’’.
‘‘It is adding a significant layer of cost to demolition and site preparation, to the point where a lot of intensification opportunities simply no longer stack up financially,’’ Mr Fairbairn said.
Infrastructure limitations were another key barrier.
‘‘I would suggest these two issues — infrastructure capacity and the escalating compliance burden around demolition — are likely to be the biggest inhibitors to any meaningful redevelopment or higher density growth within the student zone.’’
Terramark planning consultant Darryl Sycamore said the spatial plan was at risk of failing to deliver on its promises.
‘‘The council’s approach to managing residual lead in soils, while framed around protecting human health, is creating a significant and largely overlooked barrier to redevelopment and intensification,’’ he said.
‘‘In a suburb where student demand remains consistently strong, there is little financial incentive to replace older housing stock with more intensive forms of development.
‘‘The result is a policy setting that actively discourages change, while ostensibly trying to promote it.’’
The University of Otago has pointed to growing student enrolments. Its property and campus development acting director Gordon Roy said sufficient, affordable accommodation needed to be available for students that was well maintained and met Healthy Homes standards.
Otago Polytechnic operations deputy executive director Max Sims said the polytechnic wanted to see modern housing that was attractive for students to come to Dunedin.
A council spokesman said work towards a North Dunedin spatial plan was at an early ‘‘discovery’’ stage.
The council wanted to gauge the views of various parties, including students, about existing and future housing needs in North Dunedin.
‘‘As part of that work, we’re also keen to hear from developers and other stakeholders about what’s working — and what isn’t — to enable appropriate housing development in the area,’’ the spokesman said.
TGC Homes director George Hercus said there were many barriers to development in the student quarter.
Most of it was in a heritage precinct overlay zone.
‘‘The difficulty of getting resource consent through the DCC in such zones is so high that our business actively avoids purchasing land in the heritage precincts,’’ he said.
Mr Hercus said it cost about $75,000 more on average to build a two-bedroom townhouse in Dunedin than in Christchurch, ‘‘and at least half of this cost is directly caused by council regulation’’.
The lead-in-soil issue added regulatory costs, he said.
Cr Andrew Simms said the council held a developers hui in February.
The soil lead issue was discussed at length and the council agreed to look into a series of suggestions, he said.
