Waikerikeri Valley Road residents were caught by surprise at yesterday's Central Otago District Council (CODC) hearing of an application by Shaun McLellan to subdivide land near their properties.
Earl and Bernie Attfield, Peter Mirfield and Anne Holland, and Peter and Janine McKenzie had put in submissions which neither supported nor opposed the application after previously speaking to Mr McLellan about his proposal and reaching some agreements.
But they had believed the road would be tar-sealed at least to the subdivision entrance as a matter of course.
However, Council's engineers had told Mr Dymock the trigger point for sealing the road was 150 vehicles a day and that was considerably less than the threshold widely accepted by most other councils and the New Zealand Transport Agency which was 200-250.
When Mr Dymock read out his submission at the hearing, the submitters were surprised.
Mr McKenzie said that changed everything and they would have to withdraw their original submissions and would now oppose the application if the road was not to be sealed.
They were concerned about the number of vehicles using the road and that there was room to further subdivide the area at a later date.
After consulting with Mr Dymock, Mr McLellan agreed to add a condition preventing any further subdivision.
Mr Dymock advised the council to tread cautiously with regard to the sealing, as council had already allowed a 50-lot subdivision on Loop Rd at Bendigo, which was a dusty road with no requirement whatsoever to have it sealed.
"On some days Waikerikeri Valley Rd gets hardly any traffic and some days it gets a lot. Mr McKenzie has said he is entitled to rely on the [District] Plan. Well, so is the applicant.
"There has to be a standard. Rules are there for a purpose. They set a benchmark. I would ask you to think about what signal you would send if you said this has to be sealed."
Consent to subdivide the same piece of land had previously been turned down by the council, and Mr McLellan had taken the matter to the Environment Court, but then withdrawn it.
The new application would see the number of allotments reduced from 11 to nine, and the building platforms altered so they would not be visible from Waipuna Valley, the next valley across from Waikerikeri Valley.
The decision was reserved.
