Sixteen properties are involved - five commercial and 11 residential - but the valuation process has yet to be completed. Photo: Stephen Parker
Sixteen properties are involved - five commercial and 11 residential - but the valuation process has yet to be completed. Photo: Stephen Parker
A year since the Rotorua Lakes Council scrapped the controversial Victoria St arterial roading project 16 properties it bought remain in council ownership.
The council removed the proposed $50million project from its future planning programme in October last year. It had spent more than $6million in property purchases for theproposal.
Sixteen properties are involved - five commercial and 11 residential - but the valuation process has yet to be completed.
The council's chief financial officer, Thomas Colle, said the council was in touch with all previous owners.
"The properties are in the process of being valued," he said.
"Once those valuations come through they will be offered back to the owners. If they do not wish to purchase they will be offered for sale on the open market."
The route was proposed more than a decade ago when it was deemed necessary to improve traffic movements across the city, but it was met with lots of criticism.
In October last year it was scrapped after a review found 80 per cent of vehicles were travelling into, rather than across, downtown Rotorua.
