What is the Taraika Master Plan?
A Master Plan guides future land development within a particular area. A Master Plan essentially creates a ‘blueprint’ for landowners within the development area to follow, while leaving enough flexibility and scope for each landowner/developer to create their own, individual development. This is to make sure that roads join up with each other and that adequate provision is made for features such as parks and reserves.
Why is it important?
The Master Plan will ensure new housing developments are properly planned and integrated into the existing community. Without a master plan, development can end up as a series of small subdivisions that lack important connections to each other or to existing infrastructure.
What is the process?
A generalised explanation of the development process is set out below. We are currently at Step 2.
- Preparation of Master Plan
- RMA Plan Change Process
- Subdivision and Resource Consent Process (each development must go through this stage)
- Building Consent Stage
- Construction
When will the new houses be constructed?
When development actually happens depends on a range of factors, such as when the developer/landowners decides they are ready to develop. However, we expect the first stage of development to occur within the next 0-5 years.
What will development in this area be like?
Some key features will be:
- Variety of housing types
- Good for walking and cycling
- Good connections to Levin
- Quality parks and reserves
- Commercial and education activities.
Who's paying?
Council has funded the preparation of the Master Plan. We did this because several different parties own the land in question and we felt it was important that Council have some control over the plan for the area to ensure a coherent and integrated outcome.
Council will fund the ‘lead infrastructure’ for the development for the first stage of the development. An example of this is extending sewer and water pipes across Arapaepae Road to the edge of the development area. The lead infrastructure for the first stage of the development can be paid for using existing budgets. Funding for subsequent stages will be determined through the next Long Term Plan process which will commence in 2021.
While Council will fund the ‘lead infrastructure’ for the first stage, each individual developer will pay for the infrastructure required within their development (for example roads, sewer pipes and water pipes within their land).
What about infrastructure?
The short answer is we know what we need to do to make sure our pipes, water and wastewater treatment plants, and intersections can service both existing properties in Levin and future properties in Taraika.
There have been water restrictions over the last few summers. Council have been working to make the most out of the water we already have permission to take. A big part of this is working to detect and repair leaks in the system – this way, water that was being lost to leaks can be used to service new properties without actually increasing our consumption or water take from the Ōhau River. We're also looking at requiring residential lots to have rainwater tanks on site.
What about Ō2NL and State Highway 57/Arapaepae Road?
We're working closely with NZTA to make sure they are aware of the plans for Taraika and to ensure they consider this when they do the detailed design for O2NL (for example, look at planting and bunding to provide screening and noise mitigation).
We also know that Arapaepae Road/SH57 and the intersection with Queen Street is at capacity. NZTA have committed to upgrading this intersection to a roundabout, with construction to start in December 2020.