Key draft changes for the future District Plan

The Council’s District Plan Committee has endorsed the following draft changes for further development, which we’re now consulting on:

• Provide clearer, more comprehensive and integrated provisions that are specifically targeted at addressing geotechnical risk. This could include managing liquefaction, slope instability and active faults risk within a consistent framework that is also appropriate for other natural hazards, such as flood and coastal hazards in the district.
• Identify and map the following areas in the district:

1. where known active faults lie (for example, develop fault avoidance and fault awareness areas), and
2. where damaging liquefaction is more likely to occur should there be an earthquake. Once these areas are identified, develop detailed information about the impacts of this identification for an affected landowner. For example, the rules that would apply for subdivision and other development.

• Further investigate the Port Hills and potentially Malvern Hills to identify where slope instability, ie rock fall, mass movement and soil erosion, is more likely to occur. This would then inform future development in these areas.