Costly drainage issues have essentially stymied any plans to carve up one of Wanganui's passive reserves into residential sections.
As a result all of the Montgomery Rd reserve, on the corner of Great North Rd and Montgomery Rd, will be retained as a passive reserve with a decision made at yesterday's Wanganui District Council meeting.
A carve-up of the reserve has been considered by the council since 2009 and last year it decided to subdivide some sections off the reserve while retaining the top side of the property seen from Great North Rd.
Initially council had planned to subdivide all of the land, but a petition swayed a change and a partial subdivision was the outcome.
However, while the project was worked through, council staff also talked to residents whose properties bordered the reserve, especially those in Aiken Rd.
But neighbours were concerned about a potential increase in stormwater run-off across their properties. Council officers agreed that excessive loading to the area probably could not be handled by existing drainage and overcoming that issue would be very difficult and expensive.
The plan would have made any developer responsible for infrastructure costs associated with the work, but council said the cost of mitigating any risk was unlikely to attract any developer.
Councillors voted to rescind all its previous resolutions to sell any part of the land and retain it as a passive reserve. Passive reserves are generally for neighbourhood recreation as opposed to sports grounds or other facilities.