1898 days ago

Peppertree Luxury Accommodation FOR SALE!

New Zealand Sotheby's International Realty

This boutique hotel offers a new owner the opportunity to combine a healthy and diverse lifestyle with an interesting and profitable business which naturally scales down during winter, allowing for a holiday.

Each of the five beautifully appointed suites has been subtly themed, providing individual charm as well as comfort. In the heart of the lodge is a spacious, recently renovated farmhouse kitchen enjoying garden and orchard views. A large woodburner with wetback heats the water for a series of radiators around the house, ensuring year-round warmth.

Organically managed, the four-hectare property provides the ability to live from the land with honey, fruit trees, berry patches, vegetable gardens, olives and grazing for sheep, cattle and horses. The small Chardonnay vineyard with a careful selection of clones produces a succulent house wine thoroughly enjoyed by guests from all around the world.

A range of useful ancillary sheds and buildings offers space for projects, hobbies, storage and accommodation for staff. Other facilities on the property include a petanque court, croquet lawn and small gymnasium overlooking the swimming pool.

This extraordinarily diverse and unique lifestyle is ideally located on State Highway One, less than a five-minute drive from central Blenheim and 15 minutes from numerous winery cellar doors, restaurants and the airport.

Offers from $2,500,000 plus GST (if any)
Find out more

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More messages from your neighbours
4 days ago

Poll: Do you think NZ should ban social media for youth?

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

The Australian Prime Minister has expressed plans to ban social media use for children.

This would make it illegal for under 16-year-olds to have accounts on platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X.
Social media platforms would be tasked with ensuring children have no access (under-age children and their parents wouldn’t be penalised for breaching the age limit)
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Do you think NZ should follow suit? Vote in our poll and share your thoughts below.

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Do you think NZ should ban social media for youth?
  • 85.5% Yes
    85.5% Complete
  • 13.4% No
    13.4% Complete
  • 1.1% Other - I'll share below
    1.1% Complete
1939 votes
3 days ago

What's your favourite recipe for courgettes?

Mei Leng Wong Reporter from NZ Gardener & Get Growing

Kia ora neighbours. If you've got a family recipe for courgettes, we'd love to see it and maybe publish it in our magazine. Send your recipe to mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz, and if we use it in the mag, you will receive a free copy of our January 2025 issue.

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1 day ago

Waimakariri district plan faces more delays amid changing rules

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By David Hill, Local Democracy Reporter

Changing Government legislation is causing headaches for council staff, as Waimakariri’s new District Plan is set to be delayed again.

Waimakariri District Council development planning manager Matt Bacon said he was relieved when the last of the public hearings ended last week.

But with final council reports due on December 13, staff will have just two working days to present the final District Plan on December 17. A district plan helps to control and manage the development of the district or city.

‘‘We are working through what it looks like and we will update the council at its meeting on December 3,’’ Bacon said.

‘‘But we will likely seek another extension from the environment minister and the Resource Management Act (RMA) minister.’’

The council first notified its draft District Plan in September 2021, but within months legislation was introduced with new medium density residential housing standards (MDRS).

‘‘We needed to call for further submissions and we had to create a separate hearing panel to consider the plan variations to allow for the MDRS,’’ Bacon said.

‘‘We have tried to merge the process as much as possible, as well as looking at re-zoning and incorporating other new legislation.’’

When the draft plan was first notified there was no National Policy Statement (NPS) for Indigenous Biodiversity, but an NPS was introduced - and then replaced.

The Natural and Built Environment Act came into being last year and then repealed, and then there is the NPS on Urban Development and the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan.

The Government is now working on more RMA reforms and Environment Canterbury is working on the Canterbury Regional Policy Statement.

And then there is the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, which includes three proposed housing developments in Waimakariri - two of them outside of the future urban development areas identified in the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan.

All three housing developments in the Bill have been included in submissions to the District Plan, including a proposed 850-home development at Ohoka, near Rangiora, which is also subject to an Environment Court appeal.

‘‘We haven’t seen the detail, so whether it is the same proposals, we don’t know, but they are different processes so we have to just keep doing what we are doing, until we are told otherwise,’’ Bacon said.

‘‘It might just be a timing thing, but we just don’t know.’’

Bacon said delaying the District Plan until new legislation is in place is not an option.

‘‘We are looking at what we can control and having a watching brief, and we will look at transitional timings because we don’t always have to immediately change planning documents when new legislation comes in.’’

Planning manager Wendy Harris said navigating changing Government legislation is a normal part of council planning work.

‘‘If we waited we wouldn’t do anything and we would go nowhere.’’

■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.