Proposed Plan Change 14 – Housing and Business Choice Council decision on Independent Hearings Panel recommendations on Parts of City Centre zone and Heritage Items

Christchurch City Council has made its decision on accepting or rejecting the Independent Hearings Panel’s (IHP) recommendations on Plan Change 14 at its meeting on Wednesday 18 September in accordance with Clause 101, Schedule 1 of the Resource Managemen

City Centre Zone
The Council has accepted all of the IHP recommendations for the part of the City Centre Zone that excludes the red lined areas shown on the map available on Council’s webpage (https://tinyurl.com/PC14CCZ), associated provisions, and some qualifying matters.
The accepted recommendations include:

Sub-chapter 15.1;
Objectives and Policies 15.2.4.2, 15.2.6, 15.2.6.1 to 15.2.6.7, 15.11 City Centre Zone, and
a new subsection;
15.11 City Centre Zone, as a new subsection;
15.14 Matters of Discretion and a new subsection only relevant to City Centre Zone;
Relevant definitions contained in Chapter 2, being “City Centre Zone”; “Building base”; “Building tower”; “CCZ”; “Fine grain”; “Gust Equivalent Mean (GEM)”; “Habitable room”; “Height in relation to boundary”; “Human scale”; “Small building”; “Street-facing façade”.

Deleting heritage items and settings
The Council has accepted the IHP recommendations on the following Heritage items and settings:

• To change the location of the listing for the Citizens’ War Memorial within Cathedral Square
• To remove the following heritage items and settings from heritage protection in the District Plan:

• 471 Ferry Road
• 137 Cambridge Terrace – Harley Chambers
• 40 Norwich Quay (demolished)
• 36 Barbadoes Street – Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament (demolished)
• 32 Armagh Street – Blue Cottage
• 65 Riccarton Road – St James’ Church.

Changes of minor effect in Chapter 15
In accepting the IHP recommendations set out above, the Council has made the following changes of minor effect and to correct minor errors in Chapter 15 in accordance with clause 102 Schedule 1 of the Resource Management Act 1991:

• Minor changes to wording throughout;
• Consequential re-numbering of provisions;
• Corrections to rule references;
• Amendments to provisions to improve clarity of application;
• Additions as per latest IHP direction, addendums, and minutes

Consequential naming changes have been made to Commercial zone rules (Chapter 15), Subdivision and Earthworks rules (Chapter 8), Transport Rules (Chapter 7), Noise, Sign, and Light Spill rules (Chapter 6).

A complete record of these changes of minor effect and correcting minor errors can be found at https://ccc.govt.nz/assets/Documents/The-Council/Plans-Strategies-Policies-Bylaws/Plans/district-plan/Proposed-changes/PC14/Authorisation-of-Minor-Memo.pdf

Other information
The above Council decisions accepting IHP recommendations will be operative in the District Plan from Thursday 3 October 2024.

The IHP recommendations accepted by the Council, the Council decisions described above and the accepted provisions, with the changes of minor effect described above, can be viewed at ccc.govt.nz/pc14 and https://districtplan.ccc.govt.nz/. A physical copy of these can be viewed at all Council service centres and libraries.

The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform has directed the Council to notify its decisions on IHP recommendations to implement policies 3 and 4 of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development by December 2024 and to notify its decisions on all other IHP recommendations by December 2025. The Council currently intends to make decisions on all other IHP recommendations for policy 3 areas in December 2024. The Council will then determine whether to delay its decision making on other IHP recommendations.