A move by a Waitaki district councillor to halt the Forrester Heights residential subdivision in Oamaru has "100% support" from the Waitaki Citizens and Ratepayers' Association, its chairman, Warren Crawford, said yesterday.
Cr Helen Stead has put forward a notice of motion for tomorrow's council meeting which will effectively stop the council's 5.842ha, 27-section subdivision on Cape Wanbrow overlooking Oamaru and the harbour.
Instead, she wants the money set aside to develop Forrester Heights to go into the council's hospital hill 108-section subdivision on 14ha.
Mr Crawford said the association also supported that.
"I would have thought Forrester Heights would have been put on the backburner by now.
"The hospital hill is a far better prospect - better view, better sections and better prices," he said.
Sections in Forrester Heights were priced at more than $300,000, with those on hospital hill expected to be $120,000 upwards.
The Forrester Heights subdivision would be a drain on ratepayers for 25 years, said Mr Crawford, predicting it would take that long to sell all the sections.
The association would be represented at tomorrow's council meeting, and may speak at the public forum before it to support Cr Stead.
Before the notice of motion can even be discussed, let alone voted upon, it will need another councillor to second it.
Mr Crawford hoped, at the very least, it would be seconded so it could be discussed.
"Then let them [councillors] decide how they want to vote [on the motion]," he said.
The association had consistently opposed the Forrester Heights subdivision, including organising a protest during the National Party's Mainland conference in Oamaru on May 22.
