Williams Corporation Drives a Truck Through City Plan
During a walk-through of the new intensive housing development Mohua Lane, a Williams Corporation guide revealed to a couple Tim and Susie* a loophole in planning laws that allowed it to give itself consent to building dwellings that exceed the city’s legal height limits.
The practice is not illegal but allows developers to build tall dwellings that could impact future neighbouring property owners’ privacy and sunlight. And unless the loophole is closed, it could have even greater implications for Christchurch’s citizens, should new extended height limits (known as PC14) come into play in 2024, allowing for multi-storey developments the likes that many of the city’s suburbanites have never seen before.
Tim and Susie
For decades Tim and Susie* having lived near the land developed by Williams Corporation while raising their sons. Mohua Lane is, says Tim, “where the old Riccarton Club used to be, adjoining onto Middleton Park.”
The land had also been home to a bowling club and green, a sporting academy, bars, a restaurant, and rugby clubs and touch football teams that frequented the park where Tim would take their sons to practice sport.
(* The couple’s names have been changed to protect their identities.)
Pictured: the entrance to Mohua Lane off Wharenui Road
The Mohua Lane Tour
“Just to have a look at what was being built in our neighbourhood. Really curiosity from there. Just interested that’s all in what was being built, what it was like.”
“…You’ve got this massive development going up.
When the Williams Corporation opened Mohua Lane to the public, Tim and Susie decided to take a look. “We went to the open home on. When? [he asks Susie] February, so that’s probably roughly then,” says Tim.
“Just to have a look at what was being built in our neighbourhood. Really curiosity from there. Just interested that’s all in what was being built, what it was like.”
“…You’ve got this massive development going up. It’s just. I think somebody said it was 85 units or dwellings. I don’t know to be honest if that’s right but that’s what I’ve been told. …There’s a mixture of stuff. There’s houses and apartments. A huge mixture.”
“There’s open homes and there’s an open day. Two separate things. The open home, it’s like an open home for any house. You go to, you have a look, somebody shows you around.
“You remember? Yeah, probably a dozen. People coming and going all the time.”
“Williams Corporation people [were giving tours]. No idea who they are. Lots of different ones.”
“They had a sort of team, a marquee or something at the beginning, and then somebody would meet you and take you around.”
“We went and looked at various units. We looked at a, what…, in the first row there’s two-storey units, I think. And then we didn’t actually look inside any of the houses on the side, but we looked into the one adjoining Middleton Park and then another 3-storey one in the middle, middle block.”
The Loophole Explained
“…you’re able to build higher units than you would normally build in the middle. Because you have to get consent from your neighbours but if you are your neighbours, then you give consent to yourself.”
“Lots of things but what you’re particularly interested in, a comment along the lines of ‘because we bought such a big block of land, we were able to build these three-storey things in the middle, because we had we built ordinary houses down the side, both sides’.
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