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Design dominates page 3
Captain cardboard
‘Speedo’, captained by eight-year-old Spencer Cunliffe and launched by his seven-year-old sister Holly, won best design at the Kahu Youth cardboard boat race on Sunday. There were ten entries for this year’s event which attracted a big audience to the lakefront.
Back to school page 5
PHOTO: john foster
Height restriction for trees? Tim Brewster
Festival photos pages 8 & 9
Pink ponies on parade page 12
rental listings
sunclassifieds
page 15
Albert Town is in danger of becoming “a hard, intense urban environment dominated by buildings and fences,” if a community association recommendation restricting heights on plants and trees goes through, according to a local landscape architect. A proposed rule on boundary planting, outlined in a recently circulated discussion document by the QLDC, “potentially constrains an owner’s ability to aesthetically and environmentally enhance their own property. Fundamentally, it is anti-nature,” Alan
Cutler said. On the other side of the hedgerow is the Albert Town Community Association which wants to establish clear rules on planting in the township. In the document, sent to 750 residents requesting feedback on zoning and development by November 30, residents were asked about a rule restricting the height and type of boundary planting in Albert Town. The document states: “Discussions with the community association support the possible introduction of a rule requiring owners to keep all trees and hedgerows below 1.9m in height within 2m of
PHOTO: jo haines
their boundary.” Alan (pictured) shows
the maximum height that would be allowed for a
cabbage tree on an Albert Town property under the possible new bylaw. The measuring tape he is holding extends 2m from the boundary which would be the closest allowable distance for any plant more than 1.9 m high. “All we want to do is bring Albert Town into line with Wanaka and Lake Hawea,” ATCA chairperson Margaret Barrow said. The ruling would apply to new dwellings being built as well as new plantings on existing properties. The main issue is blocking views and sunlight, Margaret said. “I like my trees, but we’re just trying to tidy up an anomaly.” A major focus of the association for
the plan is stop species of wilding trees such as pines, Douglas firs and Eucalypts. The ATCA, made up of an estimated 30 households in Albert Town, attempted to get bylaws about plantings in place in the last district plan, but ran out of time, Margaret said. Former ATCA chair and current Wanaka Community Board member Bryan Lloyd said the association had been concerned for a number of years about a lack of clear guidelines especially in the case of large trees where there was little a neighbour could do if their light was being blocked. Continues page 2...