Doug Hall and Steve Ross own land that is partly zoned industrial and partly rural beside Kaikorai Valley Rd.
Both were actively looking to proceed with development and wanted it to happen before an indicated infrastructure upgrade timeline of 10-30 years for the area, Paterson Pitts surveyor Kurt Bowen said on their behalf at a future development strategy hearing in Dunedin yesterday.
The draft strategy was produced by the Dunedin City Council and Otago Regional Council and it identified a shortage of industrial land in the short term.
Mr Hall and Mr Ross endorsed identifying Burnside as an area that could help meet the need and they would like to see infrastructure upgrades supporting this accelerated.
Council officials agreed "it would be preferable if timing could be brought forward".
Mr Bowen said the land holdings in the area were large.
"The potential for development is reasonably significant," he said.
"It’s not out of the question for the two submitters to be prepared to invest themselves into infrastructure.
"So we don’t want to rule that out. We want to enable that to happen if that’s the best way forward."
As things stood, the existing zoning — which had pockets of industrial land — made planning a comprehensive development relatively difficult.
Zoning would need to be dealt with at a later hearing, but Mr Bowen confirmed signalling the land could or should be converted into industrial use as a priority would be useful.
"The difficulty in the current zoning of this land is that it drives piecemeal industrial development and does not allow the landowners of these large blocks to either plan for development or invest in the necessary infrastructure," he said in his written submission.
"Simply put, the land needs to be rezoned first, before the submitters are able to design, promote, contribute to, and rely on potential infrastructure solutions."
Mr Hall expanded on the theme of rezoning.
"There’s substantial investment going in now, but before I do the drainage I’d like to know — do I put it in to better the whole area or do I put it in just to look after the 8ha I’m developing now?"
He also said the city stood to benefit, because stormwater could be diverted to Waldronville, alleviating flooding risk in South Dunedin.
