The Forrester Heights subdivision in Oamaru - a vital element to funding the $10.3 million Opera House project officially opened earlier this year - has survived the scrutiny of a Parliamentary select committee.
The primary production select committee has left a portion of Cape Wanbrow, which the council wants to subdivide for the luxury Forrester Heights residential subdivision, in the Reserves and Other Land Disposal Bill which will now go back to Parliament for a second and third reading before being passed.
The council needed the Bill to lift a reserve designation over the land so the subdivision could proceed and contribute $3 million to the Opera House project.
That $3 million is being covered by a loan held by the council's property division, accruing interest.
Yesterday, the council's chief executive, Michael Ross, called the select committee's decision "great news for the community".
But a group which opposed the land remaining in the Bill - the Friendly Day Society - described it as "disappointing" and "political expediency".
The Cape Wanbrow land, listed in the Bill as "Lookout Point land", was set aside in 1885 for the purposes of an endowment in aid of funds for the Oamaru Borough Council.
In 1937 - in what the council, Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand, described as a mistake - the land was made subject to the Reserves Act.
The Waitaki council through the Bill has asked Parliament to change the status back to endowment land.
By doing that, it would be able to subdivide it for residential sections.
The primary production committee heard submissions on the Bill from the Friendly Bay Society and others opposing the move.
A spokesman for the society, Wayne Stringer, yesterday said would-be purchasers of sections should bear in mind there could be a High Court challenge by Waitaha, who were pushing to have Cape Wanbrow designated a sacred site.
