Plans for a joint emergency services hub in Rolleston have been scrapped for now, leaving a prime central site in limbo as councillors weigh its future use.

The Selwyn District Council voted to abandon plans for the emergency services campus at Helpet Park after agencies signalled they could not fund the development.

Councillors stopped short of committing to using the site for housing, saying they wanted to consider all options.

Selwyn Mayor Lydia Gliddon said what to do with a vacant site forms part of the bigger strategic puzzle for the fast-growing district.

Gliddon said it will form part of a wider strategic review of land use across the district, with development of a Rolleston area strategic plan to begin later this year.

There have been other proposals around the site other than housing, such as partnering Rolleston College or Te Ara Kākāriki Greenway Canterbury Trust to create a nature reserve, she said.

“What we actually need to do is look at our spatial planning and Rolleston as a whole considering what landholdings we have and what do we want to see where so we're not just making decisions in isolation.”

The council has multiple vacant land holdings “we want to be calculated on what we're doing with”.

“It’s looking at the bigger picture and making sure that the right things are in the right place.

“Not just in Rolleston but across the district.”

They also need to factor in any strategic land the council needs to acquire, Gliddon said.

Selwyn District Council had been working with police, Fire and Emergency NZ, and St John since 2023 on plans for the joint emergency services campus at Helpet Park.

At the meeting on April 15, council’s building, planning, and regulatory services executive director Robert Love said the agencies remained supportive of the project but didn’t have the funding available.

Councillors also felt the site was no longer the right place for an emergency hub and agreed to investigate other sites in Rolleston.

A key consideration is that if Helpet Park is used for housing, the development would fund the planned extension of Broadlands Drive to Lincoln Rolleston Road.

If not housing, that cost would fall to ratepayers.

“There's a bit to sort out,” Gliddon said.

“We need to decide what we do with it first and then everything else falls out of that.”

The land was also used for discharging treated wastewater for “a short amount of time” before the Pines plant came online so could require remediation works, Gliddon said.

Rolleston Residents Association chairperson and former councillor Mark Alexander had emailed councillors prior to inform them that, to his understanding, any proceeds of selling the Helpet Park land would have go to Selwyn Water Limited, not the council, as it was a wastewater asset.

He explained that the site was developed by developers to allow the initial expansion of Rolleston and then transferred the ownership of the site to council where it “sat within the council wastewater accounts”.

“When Stage 1 of the Pines Wastewater Treatment Plant was built, the community were told that proceeds from any sale of the Helpet site would be returned to council's wastewater accounts to offset any debt and/or fund further development.”

Gliddon said the council was looking into details of the site.

“We know it was acquired through the public works act and that there are things we can and can't do with the site.”

Alexander stated he supported the strategic site for housing, adding that “some of which should be community housing”.

Alexander told Local Democracy Reporting that he believed a better option would be to sell the land next to the Rolleston Community Centre.

He said it was for the possible future expansion of the centre, but with the development of Te Ara Atea and plans for a second community centre in Rolleston, selling the potentially million-dollar properties made more sense.

Gliddon said that would also be considered as part of the strategic plan.

By Jonathan Leask