Residents look to courts to stop Ferrymead tower | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

Residents against a 14-storey office block on the estuary foreshore are trying to raise $5000 to topple the project through the courts.

The Mt Pleasant Community Centre and Ratepayers' Association wants to lodge a judicial review to overturn a recent decision, which has given the office block at Ferrymead the go ahead.

A Christchurch City Council appointed independent commissioner ruled just before Christmas that there was no need to publicly notify the development, which angered nearby residents who say the tower will be an eyesore.

Residents now say they have no option but to try to raise the $5000, which will be used to determine whether they have a case to go to the High Court for a judicial review.

The Mt Pleasant residents' group has sent a letter to about 100 people requesting help in raising the money.

Linda Rutland, spokeswoman for the association's anti-office block action group, said the letter had so far only gone to people who were interested in fighting the development. A general distribution of the letter will be carried out once a public meeting on the issue has been held. A date has yet to be set for that meeting.

In the letter, obtained by the Christchurch Star, Rutland and residents group president Jeff Long say a judicial review of the non-notification decision is the only legal avenue open to challenge the consent.

"If this challenge succeeds and the application is re-processed on a notified basis, groups and individuals opposing the consent can then submit to the resource consent process on substantive grounds.

"If it fails then this is effectively the door shut on any legal challenge to the consent," they said.

At a meeting earlier this month the resident's group was told that the cost of initial research would be $3000-$5000.

"The consensus of that meeting was that a legal investigation should be done and whilst accepting no financial responsibility, the MPCCRAI agreed to be the lead organization to manage this process.

"It was further agreed that the community would need to accept responsibility for raising the money required to fund the initial research."

Rutland and Long said the money needed to be gathered in the next couple of weeks.

"If we fail to raise sufficient money to cover the initial legal work then the obvious inference we would take would be that the community does not care sufficiently about stopping the high-rise, and we would have no confidence to request that further work be done to oppose the consent."

The 14-storey office block, plus six-floor car parking building, is earmarked for the site currently occupied by the Ferrymead Tavern on the estuary waterfront.

The area is zoned for business and there is no height restriction for that area in the city council's City Plan.