History

During the first half of the last century, the land supported one of the many 12 ha dairy farms in this part of Christchurch that supplied milk to the city’s inhabitants. The Gates family owned and farmed the property the until the late 1970’s.

In 1979 the current developer of Bushland Park, Ernst Frei, purchased the 12ha farm after arriving from Switzerland on his big OE, in 1974. Falling in love with the way of life and landscape of New Zealand he settled down in Christchurch.

He immediately set out to plant shelter belts of mainly fast-growing exotic trees to turn the treeless and exposed property into sheltered a haven.

Three years later he began converting the farm into a BIO-GRO certified organic farm. Over the next few decades, today’s Bushland Park was the home of Hoon Hay Valley Organic Farm, growing organic produce and supplying Supermarkets throughout the South Island with its produce. In the 1980’s Hoon Hay Valley Organic Farm became the country’s first commercial organic Poultry and Free Range Egg producer, grazing up to two thousands laying hens and rearing and processing one thousand free ranging meat chickens a months.

Over the last twenty years or so Ernst has slowly taken out his early exotic shelterbelts and woodlot trees and replaced them with extensive plantings of native trees. This has given birth to the name of “Bushland Park” for this subdivision.

Ernst with his wife Renate now hope to create something special on their land they love and are looking forward sharing it with their new future neighbours at Bushland Park.