Summary of draft changes to landscapes in the current District Plan

The Council’s District Plan Committee has recently endorsed the following draft changes for addressing identified issues for further development, which we’re now consulting on with affected landowners and stakeholders:

• Broadly, the draft landscape areas are similar in location, however a larger area of the district is now identified.
• Only two landscape classifications are now identified (ONL and VAL).
• The High Country is where the majority of the increases in mapped ONL and VAL areas are located.
• Refinement of the extent of the draft ONL and VAL areas in the Port Hills to remove overlap and confusion.
• Much of the broader draft ONL area includes Department of Conservation land (as it did originally).
• The margins of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere are now included as an ONL area as they are integral to the broader waterbody of the lake.
• The entire Rakaia and Waimakariri rivers are now identified (up to the top of the terrace in lower sections). This matches adjacent districts (where they have been reviewed).
• Resource consents may be required for a wider range of activities to better protect landscape areas from adverse effects. For example, resource consents required for buildings on the margins of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere, Rakaia River and Waimakariri River ONLs, and intensification of pastoral farming in High Country may also be subject to resource consent.