Donovan Park Surplus Land Being Eyed Up By Developers

A retirement village and separate aged care facility are two of the options developers have come up with for the 37ha of surplus land at Donovan Park.

Mayor Nobby Clark has been approached by several local developers interested in purchasing some of the land that the Invercargill City Council was looking at selling.

A figure of $6 million has already been suggested for just 5ha of land in an area of the park not currently used.

Council parks and recreation manager Caroline Rain presented a report Parks Land Disposal Options at Tuesday’s council community wellbeing committee meeting.

City councillors will need to agree to a public consultation process that may then result in the sale of several parcels of parks and reserves around Invercargill.

The report summarised the review of land for disposal after a discussion at a previous meeting, where councillors requested land surplus to needs, be presented as options for disposal/release.

Mayor Clark said a portion of Donovan Park could be developed to ease Invercargill’s housing pressures.

He said there were 15 parcels of land around the city that were being looked at, with Donovan Park the biggest, “and nobody uses it for anything.”

Part of the land would need to be converted from reserve status into either residential, or commercial/industrial use, which would involve Ministerial sign off.