After two years of planning, including submissions and deliberation, a decision on what some Central Otago residents can do with their land in Cromwell, Clyde and Alexandra has finally been made.

The Central Otago District Council will move to notify Plan Change 19 this week during its monthly meeting, but the public will be excluded from the discussion.

Plan Change 19 was first publicly notified in July 2022 and attracted 170 submissions.

Hearings then began on April 26, 2023, and a decision was made by the panel at the end of March this year.

Plan Change 19 has been driven by the direction set out in the Vincent and Cromwell Spatial Plans. 

The spatial plans were prepared by council to respond to demand for residential land and housing affordability concerns in the district, and to plan for the anticipated growth over the next 30 years.

It sets out the way the district’s residential areas are zoned and managed, and involves rezoning new land for residential use, identifying some areas for future growth, aligning existing residential zoning with the proposed new zones, and includes new provisions for managing land use and subdivisions within the residential zones.

The plan change aligns changes around density and allows for smaller sections in some areas and therefore more houses, and also new residential areas in the Cromwell and Vincent wards, around Alexandra, Clyde and Cromwell.

According to the legislation, Plan Change 19 must be completed by July 2024, but appeals will be likely.