Private Plan Change Request by IMF Westland Ltd

1.0    Introduction

This Private Plan Change request involves land that is predominantly zoned rural in the Tauranga City District Plan and the Western Bay of Plenty District Plan.  The purposed of the proposed Plan Change is to provide additional business employment land at Tauriko.

The impetus for the request comes from the SmartGrowth Strategy approved by the sub region’s local authorities in May 2004.  IMF Westland have actively responded to the strategy through land purchase and the undertaking of investigations and consultation to support the Plan Change.

A privately initiated Plan Change, once accepted by the local authority for public notification follows the same procedures for submissions, further submissions, decisions, and appeals as a Plan Change initiated by the local authority itself.

2.0 Proposed Plan Change

2.1 Overview

The proposed plan change will provide for approximately 195 ha of industrial and commercial business  land in addition to land required for landscape buffers, and stormwater management.
 
The land comprising the proposed Tauriko Business Estate crosses the boundary between Tauranga City and Western Bay of Plenty District.  The planning criteria and standards of the Tauranga City District Plan are intended to apply across the entire area.

The proposed Plan Change has the following key features:

• Industrial Business Zoning applied to approximately 180 ha of land,
• A 4 ha extension of the Commercial Business 1 Zone land.
• An Urban Design Plan to guide the subdivision and development of the land.
• A Services Structure Plan to enable the coordination and appropriate funding of roads, water supply, stormwater management and wastewater disposal.
• An overlay of additional objectives policies and rules for land use and subdivision that apply only to the business zones at Tauriko.
• Greenbelt, flood zone, visual mitigation buffers, existing escarpment and land associated with stormwater management areas.
• Transport management requirements to provide safe and efficient connections, to the adjacent arterial road network and to enable efficient movement of goods and people, including provision for public transport, cycling and pedestrian routes, within the development itself.

• Achieving good urban design outcomes;
• Mitigating potential adverse visual effects on what was originally a relatively intact rural outlook;
• Achieving effective and efficient services provision and funding.

• Provision for convenience centres at two specified nodal locations to meet the day-to-day needs of workers by allowing a range of retail and service type activities.
• Retention of escarpment landforms as key landscape features;
• Large scale planting in public and private open space
• Controls on the height of buildings sited on the Gargan plateau and immediately adjacent to the  Pyes Pa West Urban Growth area;
• Removal of the usual requirement for Traffic Impact Assessment for activities where more than 25 parking spaces are required on-site;
• Substitution of the usual Street Scene rules with special rules applying to the key roads to produce improved visual quality through building placement and specimen tree planting;
• Additional controls on signage;
• Controls on surface reflectivity and colours;
• Controls on noise that take into account the nature of existing and future activities in the surrounding area.
• Subdivision standards that will create a framework of large scale vegetated open space in accordance with an Urban Design Plan to mitigate visual effects of the development.
• Managing and controlling development staging to ensure that necessary connections to the State Highway arterial network are appropriately upgraded and the required live/work link to Pyes Pa West at Kennedy Road is also provided.