CAMBRIDGE NEWS | 1
FRIDAY MARCH 8, 2019
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Your Local Paper
MARCH 8, 2019
Help for population boom By Sophie Iremonger Cambridge is growing, exponentially. Combined with the Waipa district, it needs around 212 new households per year to cover the growth. That’s why council staff and independent developers are putting plans in place to cater for the forecasted 13,456 additional households in the next 30 years. The town’s population boom has been largely catered to in the past half-decade by Cambridge Park, Cambridge North and St Kilda subdivisions, but in the past three years Waipa District Council saw they were nearing capacity, and identified new areas of residential growth in Cambridge. These became known as the C1, C2 and C3 growth cells, located to the north west of Cambridge. Council has moved to rezone these areas from rural to residential and commercial areas, which will come into effect on March 14 after public consultations closed in January of this year. Already the 143-hectare C3 section between the Waikato River and Cambridge Road is booming with development, with the Te Awa Lifecare resthome and village nearly completed, and plans in place to add 600 to 800 new homes next to St Peter’s School. Plans for the St Peter’s subdivision are in the early stages – sections won’t be available until at least 2021, but the idea is to make St Peter’s the centre of a community. “It’s about St Peter’s opening the gates,” explained the school’s trust board chairman John Erkkila. “To cut a long story short, we have a view to maximising our assets … and how can we create economic sustainability out of the organisation.” The idea is that the project will utilize assets to benefit the school and the wider community. More details will be released later this year, when the project is opened to the community for feedback. “This is very early days.” The subdivision will likely include 3.5km of riverfront property, covering an area from the river almost to the road (Cambridge Road), stretching from the Te Awa development next door to about 200m east of the Avantidrome. Continued on page 8
St Peter’s School trust board chairman John Erkkila says the sale of some of the school’s farm land for subdivision will benefit both the school and wider community.
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