Review of Dunedin City District Plan

DCC media release

The Dunedin City Council (DCC) has begun its first comprehensive review of the Dunedin City District Plan and is inviting Dunedin residents to take part.  Now the Spatial Plan is finalised, it is timely to develop the second generation Dunedin City District Plan (2GP), prepared under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). City Development Manager Dr Anna Johnson says, "The Spatial Plan allowed the community to have input into the overall vision and strategic directions for the city, but the District Plan is where the regulatory policies and rules are set - what people can do or build on their land and how land can be subdivided."

While some sections of Dunedin's plan have been reviewed in the last few years, such as the Hazardous Substances, Earthworks, and Transportation provisions and the Stadium and Harbourside Plan Changes, many parts of it date back to the 1990s. The review will fix the parts of the current Plan that are not clear or working properly, recognise the changes to land use and development within Dunedin, and align the Plan with changes in national policy guidance.

Mayor Dave Cull says, "It's important that those groups with an interest in specific areas have the opportunity to feed into this process. We are tapping into various communities, including those who use the Plan often, in different ways, to ensure we develop a new Plan which truly reflects the community's needs and vision for our city as set out in the Spatial Plan."  A great deal of research and analysis has already been done to identify what might need to be changed with the current Plan and to develop some options for doing things differently. This includes an analysis of the feedback people have given us on the District Plan over the years, as well as what is being done in other parts of New Zealand.  A series of short issues and options papers and an online questionnaire that will inform the development of the 2GP is available at www.dunedin.govt.nz/2gp. Workshops, both community and stakeholder, will also be held over the next few months.

District Plans are, by nature, very detailed, technical documents and some of the issues and options we have put out reflect different technical solutions, which will be mainly of interest to people who are regular plan users such as developers and people with a planning, legal, or design background. A summary paper, called 'How proposed changes to the District Plan might affect home or land owners in urban areas', is also available for those with a more

general interest in the District Plan.

Dr Johnson says, "The issues and options phase of consultation will finish in early March next year. Following this, our real hard work will commence, with the collation and integration of the feedback into the drafting of the second generation District Plan. We are hoping to notify a draft District Plan by February 2014, which will be followed by a formal submissions and hearings process."

For more information:

Dave Cull                  Dr Anna Johnson

Mayor of Dunedin      City Development Manager

Phone 0274 346 917  Phone 474 3874