Owners of the luxury Matakauri Lodge will have to wait longer to expand the lodge after commissioners adjourned a hearing to decide on the construction of a proposed "owners' cottage".
After receiving 22 opposing submissions, two of which were withdrawn, the proposed four-room accommodation building went to a resource hearing before commissioners David Clark and Jayne Taylor on Thursday.
The boutique lodge was bought by United States billionaire Julian Robertson in 2009 and has been expanded to include the main lodge building, stand-alone accommodation buildings, carports and residential units.
Mr Robertson and son Jay Robertson have proposed the add-on be placed on the southwestern side of Glenorchy Rd, but have received one opposing submission from neighbours Marc Scaife and Christine Byrch.
"This building tips the scale into something unacceptable," said Ms Byrch, who is married to Mr Scaife.
Mr Scaife, who has owned the neighbouring property for 15 years and designed the buildings for the lodge's previous owners, said the proposed new building would protrude visually on to the natural surroundings of the area.
"In its totality, the Matakauri Lodge complex has to be regarded as both significant in its visual effects, out of character with the rural lifestyle zone and degrading visual amenity, outstanding natural landscape and the lake margins."
The pair submitted the visual effects of the lodge would be seen from their home, the nearby Seven Mile track and car park, the lake shore, the lakeside jetty and the right of way.
"No effort has been made to break up the bulk of the building .. . On the contrary, the design imposes itself on the site with no special regard to its topography."
Mr Scaife, an architect, said the building had been designed with "the primary objective of maximising views to the lake, with no regard for the visibility of the building from the lake".
Lodge general manager Jay Robertson said in his statement of evidence, since he and his father took over the lodge in 2009, it was now a "substantially better environment to live beside".
He said he had had several meetings with his neighbour to agree on plans and Mr Scaife had "subsequently changed his mind".
"The owners' cottage, which he apparently finds so offensive, is simply a much-improved replacement for his somewhat eccentric original design."
He said Mr Scaife's suggestion the proposed building would transform Matakauri into a "full-blown commercial resort" was unreasonable.
In the applicants' closing submission, Atkins Holm Majurey lawyer Mike Holm, of Auckland, said the commissioners had been taken through a "narrow journey" by the opposing neighbours.
"What are the credible adverse effects? My submission is there are none. The onus on the neighbours to produce evidence has simply not been met."
