A request for a private district plan change to rezone the Roxburgh Camping Ground land as residential has been rejected.
The camp closed in 2003 and Paterson Pitts Central director Peter Dymock applied to the Central Otago District Council on behalf of the landowner for agreement in principle to rezone the land from rural to residential.
He said the site was a pocket of land zoned rural in the heart of a residential area.
"Retention of the site in the rural zone will not ensure the continued existence of a camping ground," Mr Dymock said.
"There is no prospect that the camping ground will be retained, whatever the zoning of the site."
His client was contemplating a 12-lot residential subdivision of the site but would need to undertake a considerable amount of work to prepare a private plan change, he said.
Before the landowners spent the "considerable" sum of money required to make a formal plan-change request, they wanted an indication from the council such a request would be accepted, he said.
The proposal would result in the development of sections in the heart of the town, which would counteract the "undesirable" trend of ribbon development along State Highway 8, Mr Dymock said.
The council's planning manager, Louise van der Voort, said the district plan was made operative on April 1 last year and the council had the discretion to accept or reject requests for plan changes for two years from that date.
There was no evidence of a demand for more residential sections in Roxburgh, she said.
The request failed to meet the criteria in the council's policy for accepting such plan changes, she said.
