Identifying the Dukes Rd North area as a potential site for the freight hub should not be "subject to" working out how constraints might be dealt with, Southern Edge Hub Farms representatives said.
Such matters, which included traffic issues, could be covered in future processes, such as seeking changes to Dunedin’s district plan, counsel Phil Page said.
It was fine for the future development strategy to identify constraints and map them, but it was "not appropriate to make things subject to them".
A hearing about a draft future development strategy for Dunedin produced by the Dunedin City Council and Otago Regional Council continued yesterday.
Mr Page highlighted council officials recommended that, should the panel agree with Southern Edge arguments, adding Dukes Rd North to the strategy as a potential inland port location could be "subject to necessary investigations and infrastructure upgrades being identified and funded in relevant funding documents".
The upgrades required would include Three Waters upgrades, a heavy-traffic bypass and any necessary upgrades to flood management infrastructure.
Mr Page said this was not an appropriate function of a future development strategy.
An inland port is expected to increase truck movements in Mosgiel as the facility grows, although not in the first five years.
"Southern Edge’s position on the heavy-traffic bypass is that it has been identified as a priority for 20 years," Mr Page said.
"Sooner or later, something will get done about that."
Bridget Irving, also legal counsel for Southern Edge, said identification of a possible freight hub location should precede work on a strategic transport study for Mosgiel.
The alternative of a freight hub landing at some stage down the track and the transport study then having to be revised "doesn’t strike us as overly efficient".
Southern Edge director Peter Dynes told the hearing he believed Dukes Rd North was the most cost-effective site for a freight logistics park, shifting product from road to rail there.
The hub company owned property next to Fonterra and Port Otago land.
Mr Dynes said volume from Fonterra would be critical to the park’s success.
Asked principally about logging, Mr Dynes said an alternative suggestion of Milburn, near Milton, was too far away from Dunedin.
The Milburn location’s gradient was too steep, he said.
Consultant for Southern Edge John Kyle said adding the Mosgiel location to the strategy could assist the project, but a lot of work would be needed to prove its case.
Sweep Consultancy principal Emma Peters, representing a series of submitters about housing development, said the draft strategy relied heavily on intensification and there was a good case for enabling more greenfields development.
The strategy should be ambitious, provide for housing choice and show where Dunedin was going to grow long term, she said.
