The Miro St extension is for 11 sections so far. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
PAM GRAHAM
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Residents want to know more about a lifestyle village planned for the Miro St extension but there’s been no application to Masterton District Council yet for it.
“Yes, it is going to happen but not right now,” said Roger Southey, the businessman behind the Cashmere Oaks subdivision on land to the north of the far end of Miro St in Lansdowne.
A resident contacted the Times-Age to say they had no problem with the original plan for an extension to Miro St with houses around a cul-de-sac but the plan for a lifestyle village with 50-plus extra houses that surfaced since would increase the traffic flow down a narrow street and ruin the feel of a quiet neighbourhood.
The lifestyle village is in a Cashmere Oaks Development Concept Plan drawn up by Tomlinson and Carruthers Surveyors in 2016.
Now the extension is moving along with the marketing of the 11 sections at the end of Miro St, residents are wondering when the lifestyle village will happen and want to know more about it.
The sections range in size from 556m2 to 1117m2 and prices start at $180,000. The advertisement says it’s a quiet location.
The council said it had received numerous queries about how land beyond the sections was being developed. Each time, residents have been told there was no consent, or even an application for a consent to further develop the land, and council has not received any applications for development of a lifestyle village.
If and when it does, council will make a decision on whether it complies with the Wairarapa Combined District Plan, a spokesperson said.
Southey said, “everyone knows about it, I don’t know why anybody would want to make a fuss about it”.
He said plans for Cashmere Oaks went back to 2006 but he acknowledged the lifestyle village had not always been in the plan.
“Things change,” he said. “Times change. I’m not talking about a retirement village, I am talking about a lifestyle village.”
He compared the village with others where residents must be at least 55 years old, agree to various rules and pay a regular fee covering the costs of lawn mowing and gardening, village administration, landscaping, rubbish collection, village maintenance and exterior building insurance.
Southey said people wanted a “lock-up and leave situation” where maintenance is done for them.
“That’s the type of village we are looking at for 55-pluses.”
The village would consist mostly of two-bedroom houses and there are no plans for hospital facilities.
He said there were always people who were against anything.
“There will be traffic coming off there but if you do your research on lifestyle villages it is not that heavy,” he said.
“And, there is another way we can go out as well. It is all a bit premature.”
He said he would look at doing the lifestyle development “soon”, but “soon could be five years away”.
The resident of Miro St, who did not want to be named, said Southey had been unhappy about the parklet in Park St next to his car dealership and had been frustrated with lack of information from council.
“We are sick of hearing Roger Southey bleating on about the parklet in Park St.”
The resident said they had no idea what was going on with the Miro St extension and “access should be off Cashmere Oaks as the streets up there are much wider and it is part of the same overall development”.
The resident said they had been told the Miro St extension will be good for resale value of their properties.
“We fail to see how resale values will improve with the construction of a lifestyle village over two to three or more years.”
A history of the Cashmere Oaks development on the Tomlinson & Carruthers website says the site presented several challenges being between a railway corridor and a state highway on the northern urban fringe of Masterton.
The client wanted a subdivision with its own unique character while blending and complementing its surroundings and making the most of expansive views of the mountains to the west.
