John MacDonald: Christchurch Airport flight path rules need to change

I don't know whether the Christchurch City Council anticipated this kind of thing, but there is proof today that it got it wrong with its decision to limit new homes being built under Christchurch Airport’s flight path.

And I think it needs to reverse its decision. It was only last year when the council made it and, already, it’s backfiring.

Because we’re finding out today that development company Williams Corporation has abandoned plans for a university housing complex in Ilam, next to the University of Canterbury, because of these ridiculous restrictions.

It was to be $80 million worth of apartments, 177 of them, that were to be sold to private investors to rent out, as well as to people wanting to live near the uni, such as university staff.

The land is on Kirkwood Avenue and is zoned for housing, but it’s also inside this airport noise contour, which means the airport gets to have a say on any housing developments in the area.

This is 6 kilometres from the airport and part of a total of 600 hectares of land under flight paths in Christchurch where housing developments are limited because of jet noise.

Which means, thanks to the city council, our airport, which is 75 percent owned by the council, is the only one in the world with such tough restrictions.

What makes them even more ridiculous is that it wouldn’t matter if Williams Corporation wanted to build under the flight path and insulate these apartments to the max with quadruple glazing. It’s the noise outside the house that matters.

According to The Press, the airport initially said no outright.

Then it went back and said it might reconsider if a minimum number of the apartments were only used during the university year.

Because the issue the airport has with the development is its “scale and intensity”. I’ve got no idea what that has to do with noise.

But that didn’t suit Williams Corporation because its plan was to build these new apartments and sell them to either landlords to rent out to students, or to people such as university staff who want to live close to work.

So the airport’s idea was never going to work.

As Matthew Horncastle from Williams Corporation says: “It meant we couldn’t sell one of the homes to a university lecturer or a local cleaner. It could only be for transient accommodation, and to rent out for less than a year at a time.

“It’s not an easy market, and that would have created too much additional risk for an $80 million development.”

Too right.

These restrictions also don’t make sense when you consider that there are truckloads of people already living under the flight path.

That isn’t lost on M. Grace-Stent, who is a housing affordability advocate, who says the airport is not an unknown quantity.

They’re also saying today that the lack of accommodation around the university is pushing up costs for students and that these building restrictions under the airport flight path are totally unnecessary. And I couldn’t agree more.

And before other developments get given the chop because of them, the council needs to get rid of them.

LISTEN ABOVE