This reserve land occasionally doubles as a sheep farm and includes a car park lookout point for general public use.

In 1962, the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation leased a 4.9ha section of the reserve from the Crown on the summit of Sugarloaf Hill to install and operate a television communications tower and control building.

[6] With a height of 121 m, the lattice steel structured tower is founded on a 5-metre deep concrete pad underlain by basalt volcanic rock.

Multiple services operate off the tower including television, radio, emergency response, aviation, cellular and other data signals.

The tower covers much of Christchurch and central Canterbury, for example the DVB-T signal reaches as far as Waipara in the north, the foothills of the Southern Alps in the west, and the Rangitata River in the south.

[10] An RF emissions report conducted on 9 February 1998 by the National Radiation Laboratory found that maximum exposure levels of 8 μW/cm2 were detected in the car park area, immediately below the Sugar Loaf antenna.