Key draft changes for the future District Plan

Heritage items
As part of the District Plan Review, the Council ran a public consultation from late January to early March this year to hear from residents whether there were any buildings, structures or other heritage items that they believed had heritage value and needed to be protected for current and future generations living in the district.

Following the public engagement we received over 40 nominations from the public for new heritage items. Another 50 potential items were identified by Dr Ann McEwan, a heritage specialist who has been engaged by the Council to assist in the review of heritage items listed in the District Plan.

The Council’s District Plan Committee has endorsed the following key draft changes related to heritage items for further development:

Update the assessment criteria for heritage items, which includes consideration of the heritage item’s setting.
Have one schedule in the District Plan and one set of rules that apply to all listed items.
Amend the schedule of listed heritage items by removing 10 currently listed items (mainly due to the fact that they have been demolished) and adding new items. The total of proposed listed heritage items would be 209. See the draft list of:

currently listed heritage items to be deleted from the Proposed District Plan
currently listed heritage items to be retained in the Proposed District Plan
new heritage items to be added to the Proposed District Plan.

Protected trees
The Council’s District Plan Committee has endorsed the following key draft changes related to protected trees for further development:

Have new criteria for assessment of protected trees.
Amend the schedule of protected trees by removing some existing ones (mainly due to the fact that have been damaged or destroyed by storms) and adding new ones. The total of proposed protected trees would be 100 (excluding groups of more than one tree). This draft schedule is aligned with the technical assessment undertaken by a qualified arboriculturist from Treetech Ltd. See the draft list of:

proposed trees to be added to the new District Plan
proposed trees to be removed or kept for the new District Plan.