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Judging by the number of responses to the proposed building plans for the land above Bridle Path Road, Heathcote people care deeply about our valley. They will be interested therefore to hear what the latest version of the building project has in store for us: sections up the valley side to the 50 metre contour line.
The new proposal goes before our community board, and from there to the council for adoption, with a chance for public submissions after that.
The old version:
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The new version:
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Residents will recall that we recently rejected a high intensity project that featured section sizes of as little as 450 m2 by a majority of 98 to 2! As a result of our submissions, the new proposal is to make the minimum section size 750 m2 between the Bridle Path Road frontage and a line based around the 20 metre contour and a proposed waterway corridor.
The cost of this however is that the project now continues up to the 50 metre contour, albeit with some of these sections being of a larger size of 1,500 m2.
Overall, the new proposal gives around 90 new sections, which is a welcome reduction on the previous figure of a possible 135. This will help moderate any potential effects on our primary school as well as reducing traffic movements on the surrounding road network. The larger sections will provide more room for planting, thereby allowing some softening. The price however is the visual impact, and any other problems, of building on the higher slopes.
It's interesting to compare the previous proposal with what is now on offer. Take a look at the two maps above. The one on the left shows the old preferred option; it stopped at the green line and featured up to 135 new houses, with small 450-550 m2 sections proposed along Bridle Path Road.
The map on the right is the new version; now, 750 m2 sections are proposed to around the 20 metre contour (the lower white line on the map), with larger sections up to the higher 50 metre contour (marked by the second white line).
To sum up, as a result of our submissions, the project will result in less sections (around 90, versus 135), with a larger minimum size (750m2, versus 450 m2). The drawback is that the visual impact of the project will be increased as it reaches up the valley hillsides to the 50 metre contour line. These sections will however be larger again, with some being of a 1500 m2 size.
What will Heathcote people make of it all? It will be interesting to see what this hillside looks like, 10 years on...
The proposal is described in the agenda for our Hagley / Ferrymead
Community Board's meeting of 5 November 2008. A copy of the Bridle Path Road Area Plan dated October 2008 was distributed at this meeting .
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