Advocacy group's concerns over possible subdivision

Gary Kircher has been re-elected as mayor for Waitaki District. Photo: ODT files
Gary Kircher
An Oamaru advocacy group has raised the alarm after Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher re-floated the possibility of a residential subdivision on the 5.8ha block at Cape Wanbrow known as Forrester Heights.

This week, second-term Waitaki district councillor Jeremy Holding was appointed associate chairman of the harbour area committee with a focus on Cape Wanbrow.

Mr Kircher, who is chairman of the committee, said part of the brief for the new associate chairman was to help lead the "conversation" with the community Mr Kircher wanted about the land once touted as prime real estate.

Friends of Oamaru Harbour issued a statement yesterday decrying any development of the controversial site.

"The real beneficiaries would be real estate agents who would develop and sell the luxury home sites.

"The big losers would be the citizens of Oamaru, who would see a huge bite taken out of beautiful Cape Wanbrow and replaced with a dense wall of expensive houses.

"The aesthetic, environmental and recreational potential of the site would be lost forever," the group said.

"The sell-off of this part of Cape Wanbrow has been prevented for 15 years because of public concern.

"Make your voice heard ... now more than ever."

A subdivision on Cape Wanbrow was proposed by the Waitaki District Council more than a decade ago, but the project never get off the ground.

After years of confusion, in 2013, the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Act clarified the status of Forrester Heights as endowment land, overturning a clerical mistake from 1937 that classified the area as reserve land.

But later that year, the now-defunct Waitaki Ratepayers and Concerned Citizens Association presented then Waitaki mayor Alex Familton with a petition containing more than 700 signatures supporting Forrester Heights' becoming a reserve "never [to] be built on".

In 2016, economic development group Venture Waitaki reopened the issue, conducting a survey that drew about 400 responses and indicated some support (54%) for a subdivision.

Then, this winter, Forrester Heights was included in a council Oamaru Harbour master plan consultation proposal as a potential means to pay for development at the harbour in the council's upcoming 30-year plan for the area.

At the council's first public forum of the triennium, community stalwart Ray Henderson spoke in favour of the land being preserved as a "community asset", saying it could be planted and renamed "Forrester Memorial Park".


 

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