Scope Resources Ltd’s lodged a resource consent application to subdivide its 13-hectare property below the Remarkables mountain range into about 75 industrial lots.
This landholding, referred to as ‘Coneburn Industrial South’, joins adjacent landholdings owned by Trojan Holdings and Grant Hensman (who’s also a director of Scope), in being within the district plan’s adopted 26ha Coneburn Industrial Zone (CIZ).
The application states Scope Resources "is acutely aware of the shortage in the Whakatipu Basin for land zoned light industrial by way of the number of inquiries it receives from members of the community as to progress towards making industrial land available in the CIZ".
Its site has been used for gravel extraction since the late '50s, but that’s now confined to a quarry area in its southeastern corner.
The height of buildings would be below the mounds that have been put in place to shield the gravel extraction.
Scope GM Peter Laurenson says because they’re reusing land, "it’s not taking virgin land from somewhere else, and it’s sort of nicely tucked away in that whole corridor behind a lot of bunds".
He says the largest industrial lot would be more than 10,000 square metres and the smallest only 525sqm.
Given council approval, he’s hoping the subdivision — accessed via a recently-completed roundabout — would be in place in the next 2-2-and-a-half years.
In its application, Scope’s asking it be given 10 years to give effect to it.
