Proposed Ashhurst Growth Areas
The proposed Ashhurst Growth Areas include five sites identified for residential development in the future according to the Future Development Strategy. This would enable more homes to be built.
The five sites include:
- Mulgrave Street area (currently zoned conservation and amenity)
- North Street area (currently zoned rural)
- The Pit area (currently zoned recreation)
- Winchester Street area (currently zoned rural)
- Oxford Street area (zoning correction from rural to residential)
Work so far
We’ve been investigating rezoning these areas since 2019. This has included holding a range of consultation sessions with the Ashhurst community and meeting with many of the directly affected landowners.
We have also commissioned assessments on:
- Contaminated land
- Cultural values
- Infrastructure capacity
- Transport
- Flooding
- Stormwater
- Urban design
Many of these assessments have had draft reports completed, and we now completed the flood and stormwater assessments.
Flooding and stormwater
Regional Council rules require us to ensure any new development can avoid flooding on anything below a 1 in 200 year flood. The rest of Ashhurst currently only has 1 in 100 year flood protection.
This is a complex matter that we need to consider carefully given climate change related flooding problems are becoming more common. Technical flooding and stormwater assessments were completed in early 2024, and provided to landowners within the Ashhurst Growth Areas. The complexity and cost of providing flooding and stormwater protection to the area means Council will not be rezoning these areas to residential in the short to medium term.
Landowners and developers may lodge private applications to rezone the land where they are willing to pay for infrastructure that will resolve flooding and stormwater issues in the area.