{"id":281758,"date":"2026-02-13T06:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/281758\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T06:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:22:12","slug":"too-good-for-housing-mixed-emotions-as-family-farm-turned-into-subdivision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/281758\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Too good for housing’: Mixed emotions as family farm turned into subdivision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: David Hill \/ North Canterbury News<\/p>\n

Two Canterbury sisters have mixed emotions as their family farm is turned into a housing estate.<\/p>\n

Cath Kennedy and Barbara Corbett attended the sod turning ceremony with\u00a0Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon\u00a0for the new 419-home Cambridge Estate subdivision in west Rangiora this week.<\/p>\n

Their parents, Don and Hilda Corbett, former owners of The Plough Hotel, bought the farm in 1973, where they ran sheep and cattle, and bred thoroughbred horses.<\/p>\n

”It’s too good for housing. It’s beautiful land,” Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

”But it’s the way the town is moving. It has been for decades.”<\/p>\n

The Corbett family moved to Rangiora from Christchurch in 1964, taking over The Plough Hotel, which had two paddocks behind it and stables for the horses.<\/p>\n

In those days Rangiora was much smaller, being largely contained within the town belts.<\/p>\n

”There was no Ashgrove School. It was just a dust bowl,” Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

”The town went as far west as West Belt. Blackett Street wasn’t there. It was just a dust bowl.<\/p>\n

”It’s amazing how much the town has developed.”<\/p>\n

The 19.2ha Cambridge Estate is being developed by Ben Dormer.<\/p>\n

Gordon said the development showed confidence in the local economy.<\/p>\n

The land was rezoned as part of the Waimakariri District Plan, which was adopted in June last year and is now partially operative.<\/p>\n

The District Plan opened up land for up to\u00a017,000 new sections\u00a0over the next 30 years.<\/a><\/p>\n

”It’s good to see our new District Plan in operation,” Gordon said.<\/p>\n

”It just shows what can happen when developers work with the council.<\/p>\n

”We always want to work in with developers because we want to support growth in areas which are appropriate for development.”<\/p>\n

He said it was good see locals involved in the development.<\/p>\n

Dormer’s father, Mike Dormer, founded The Willows Cricket Club, based at a picturesque ground at Loburn, north of Rangiora.<\/p>\n

Dormer Construction, run by his brother Pete Dormer, is the contractor on the site, while Ray White Rangiora is looking after the sales.<\/p>\n

The first 148 sections, which make up stages 1-5 have already gone to market, with half already sold.<\/p>\n

Titles are expected to be issued by the end of the year, with the first residents likely to move in by the middle of next year.<\/p>\n

Sections range in size from 250sqm to 800sqm, with 419 sections to be developed in 13 stages.<\/p>\n

Ray White Rangiora manager Stuart Morris said the smaller sections were selling for under $300,000 and he expected there would be some house and land packages selling for under $700,00.<\/p>\n

”It has been well received by the market. It is affordable, but a very pleasing sub-division, which is just what we need in western Rangiora.<\/p>\n

”We have some great options and there is a great team working on the product.”<\/p>\n

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: David Hill \/ North Canterbury News Two Canterbury sisters have mixed emotions as their family farm is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-281758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}