While development opportunities for landowners within the North Three Parks plan change area would be beneficial, access constraints for some were illogical in the context of the zoning proposed, a hearing in Wanaka heard yesterday.
The Queenstown Lakes District Council-initiated Plan Change 4 would rezone 46.8ha of privately owned rural general land near the Wanaka Golf Course and Ballantyne Rd to become part of the neighbouring 100ha Three Parks Special Zone, which became operative in 2011. Three Parks is owned by Allan Dippie's company, Willowridge Developments Ltd.
One of the sub-zones within the plan change area - owned mainly by Ballantyne Investments Ltd - would be medium-density residential, which provides for visitor accommodation.
Given that development potential, Sue Robertson - one of the three smaller landowners within the plan change boundary - questioned the logic behind the planned closure of her property's access off SH84 by the New Zealand Transport Agency once an alternative rear access was established via North Three Parks' roading network.
"It simply doesn't add up considering we border SH84, the gateway to Wanaka. Our land will simply be just a backwash," she said.
Her concerns mirrored those earlier expressed by neighbours Roger Moseby and Marilyn Gordon, also landowners within the plan change area.
Simon and Carolyn Spencer-Bower, who own a property in the northwestern corner of the plan change area, were not opposed to Mr Dippie's earlier suggestion of establishing a new arterial link at the corner of Ballantyne and Golf Course Rds along the front of their property into the commercial core of Three Parks, via North Three Parks, but wanted to retain their driveway access off Ballantyne Rd.
"It seems silly to have to drive through the back residential streets to get to our property," Mr Spencer-Bower said.
In response to Mr Dippie's lawyer Graeme Todd's concerns from day one of the hearing that the plan change was a "clip on" to the approved Three Parks Special Zone, council planning officer Sue Mavor explained the structure plan for North Three Parks was to be added to the existing structure plan for Three Parks to become one all-inclusive plan with the same rules, objectives and policies.
"If we applied new ones, many of them would replicate what's already in Three Parks," Ms Mavor said.
There would be one assessment criteria specific to the North Three Parks outline development plan, though, which would take into account the provisions of its urban design framework.
Discussion again focused on the established Douglas fir trees on the eastern boundary of the plan change area within the Wanaka Golf Course, to which Mrs Robertson and Mr Spencer-Bower voiced strong objections.
However, Commissioner Leigh Overton said while the trees had relevance, the hearing had no jurisdiction over them because they were outside the plan change boundary.
Commissioner David Whitney adjourned the hearing to consider the plan change, before making a recommendation to Council.
