Friday 24 May, 2019

Deadline extended for further submissions on Proposed Waikato District Plan

Waikato District Council has extended the deadline for making a ‘further submission’ on the Proposed Waikato District Plan (Stage 1) while it reviews and corrects omissions from the Summary of Submissions it issued last month.

The Council has discovered that a handful of the nearly 1,000 submissions were not published in its Summary of Submissions for its community to consider in order to make a ‘further submission’, and several other submission summaries needed minor corrections.

The Council says it is extending the original deadline of Monday 27 May and it will announce a new closing date for further submissions once it is certain it has corrected and published all omissions.

Waikato District Council Chief Executive Gavin Ion says, “We’ve apologised to the submitters involved, we’ve notified all other submitters, we’ve announced it on our website where anyone making a further submission will see it, and so we’re now making sure that our whole community is aware that they have extra time to make a further submission.”

“Once we have a new timeframe we will apply it to all further submissions to give our community a fair chance to look at all the original submissions together. This will also serve to provide extra time for the community to consider what might be important to them,” says Mr Ion.

A further submission is an opportunity to support or oppose other people’s submissions on the Proposed District Plan, to comment on how a submission may impact you, and to have your views considered by the Hearings Panel along with the original submission.

The District Plan sets the rules for how the district’s land can be used, developed and subdivided and it is reviewed every 10 years.

Mr Ion says, “The Plan gives guidance as to what you can do with your land, for example, whether you can subdivide your property and where you can site a building. It also protects our cultural heritage and our environment by identifying Maaori sites of significance, heritage buildings and significant natural areas.”

The Council encourages anyone making a further submission to do it online through the Council website www.waikatodistrict.govt.nz, but hard copies of the submission forms are also available from all Council offices and libraries, or you can phone 0800 492 452 to request one. You do not need to have made an original submission to make a further submission.

ENDS

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