Latest / Best of Business / Matt James: Pegasus Residents' Group president on the rejection of proposal to fast-track the rezoning of the town's golf course

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Matt James: Pegasus Residents' Group president on the rejection of proposal to fast-track the rezoning of the town's golf course · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZB. Follow
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  Speaker 2: Pegasus, the Pegasus Residence Group has welcomed the news that
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  Speaker 2: Wolfbrook's fast track application for the development of the golf
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  Speaker 2: course has been declined. The Minister Chris Bishop said today
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  Speaker 2: that Wolfbrook's application should go through the RMA rather than
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  Speaker 2: the fast track process.
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  Speaker 3: They it would be better to go through a normal
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  Speaker 3: RMA process and not use fast track. So that's over
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  Speaker 3: to the applicants. My role is actually a relatively limited one,
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  Speaker 3: which is to receive the application via the agency. You
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  Speaker 3: make an assessment and then it's either a YA or
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  Speaker 3: an A in terms of the referral, and I've declined it.
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  Speaker 2: Matt James is the president of the Pegas's Residence Group
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  Speaker 2: and he's with us now home.
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  Speaker 4: Matt, good afternoon.
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  Speaker 2: Have you celebrated this.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yes, it's fair to say cautiously, but we have
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  Speaker 4: celebrated for sure.
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  Speaker 2: The cautious celebration look like is that like a shandy yawn?
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  Speaker 2: What is it?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah? I guess so? Really, yeah, it's like half and half.
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  Speaker 2: When did you find out?
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  Speaker 4: I got a phone call about half past five last night.
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  Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, okay, that's interesting. How did the person who
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  Speaker 2: told you, like, how did this get out?
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  Speaker 4: It was? I was actually informed by our local national MP,
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  Speaker 4: Matt Doosey. He was the first person who called me,
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  Speaker 4: and then a few other people ran quite quickly after
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  Speaker 4: that too.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, good. I was asking because we got a
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  Speaker 2: text at about five to six saying is it true
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  Speaker 2: that this has happened? And it took us about half
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  Speaker 2: an hour to establish it, Like nobody's actually made a
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  Speaker 2: song and dance of it. It sort of filtered out, didn't it. Anyway?
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  Speaker 2: Do you know why it is that the minister declined this?
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  Speaker 4: We don't And this is an interesting thing. As you
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  Speaker 4: say in your build up, there is no clarity. I
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  Speaker 4: have suspicion, but it's a purely a personal opinion. And
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  Speaker 4: one key thing for fast Track is you need to
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  Speaker 4: be able to demonstrate national significance and regional economic benefit
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  Speaker 4: and I don't think a development of this nature would
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  Speaker 4: have done that. But I don't know why.
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  Speaker 2: You guys have heaps of houses down there already.
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  Speaker 4: Well yeah, at the end of the day, the local
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  Speaker 4: district council, I only just did the thirty year district
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  Speaker 4: plan last year. They'd already baked in seventeen thousand sections
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  Speaker 4: already there is no further need, so you know, this
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  Speaker 4: would have been additional capacity that just doesn't need it,
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  Speaker 4: and it's planned elsewhere and has gone through consultation to derive.
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  Speaker 2: Where do you reckon that they may have had a
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  Speaker 2: bitter chance if they hadn't been so aggressive in their
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  Speaker 2: tactics the developer.
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  Speaker 4: It's an interesting one, isn't it. I'm not sure. I'd
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  Speaker 4: like to think that the merits of its decline would
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  Speaker 4: stand in their own right. They certainly haven't endeared themselves
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  Speaker 4: to us. I guess technically they've done nothing wrong, but yeah,
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  Speaker 4: it's yeah, I'd like to think it would stand, and
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  Speaker 4: you know, the decline would have stood in its own right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: They can obviously reapply, can't they. Do you think they will?
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  Speaker 4: You? Yeah, I mean that's our caution. I guess that's
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  Speaker 4: why we've been very caution at the moment. It's hard
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  Speaker 4: to know that there is no appeal as such. It
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  Speaker 4: is a complete reapplication. So with that is the full
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  Speaker 4: fees and all the documentation that goes with that, And
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  Speaker 4: I guess you have to ask the question if I
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  Speaker 4: was them, is unless they get the clarity of why
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  Speaker 4: they didn't get through the first time around, why would
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  Speaker 4: you do it? So assuming they do get that clarity
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  Speaker 4: at some level, then they might have a second crack.
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  Speaker 2: The old fast track process has taken a bit of
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  Speaker 2: a hammering in terms of public reception in the last
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  Speaker 2: few weeks. I suppose has this restored your faith in it?
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  Speaker 4: It has. We've never had an issue with fast Track
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  Speaker 4: as it was intended, and you hear many people echo
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  Speaker 4: that sentiment fast track was for big infrastructure projects, you know, roading,
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  Speaker 4: housing or hospital sorry our plans and things like that.
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  Speaker 4: It was never meant for residential development. It's the fact
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  Speaker 4: that developers have found this loophole of its back door
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  Speaker 4: to progress out of sequence planning and override and minimize
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  Speaker 4: the voice of those actually impacted by that change.
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  Speaker 2: All right, listen, Matt, I really appreciate your time very much.
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  Speaker 2: You go, and they have the second half of your
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  Speaker 2: Shandy has Matt James, Pigasus Residence Group Group President.
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