The Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust will seek expressions of interest from a party or parties to buy the commercially zoned vacant land at 3 Onslow Rd outright, valued at $350,000, and construct the building for a cafe-bar and manage the commercial operation.
The 1113sq m site was part of the Nerin Square village project on the corner of Hope Ave and Onslow Rd and had resource consent for a commercial building, including cafe-bar with extended operating hours.
Trust chairman David Cole said yesterday a cafe-bar and child-care centre were part of the trust's overall design for part of Nerin Square.
''We worked with the child-care centre developers and with a potential party interested in the cafe-bar.
''The child-care centre, as we know, is up and running and very successful. We've not enjoyed the same success with the cafe-bar, for a variety of reasons.
''It's taken time to get the planning consents and the party we were working with was not successful in settling the contract with us. We've given them plenty of opportunity, extensions of time and so forth to accommodate them, but there comes a time when it's clear it's not going to happen and we need to get this thing under way because I know Lake Hayes Estate residents are keen to see that amenity afloat.''
Mr Cole said the trust wanted to sell the land because the trust was in the business of building homes, not investing in cafe-bars.
When construction would begin and when the cafe-bar would open would depend on the responses the trust received, Mr Cole said.
There were almost 500 homes in the estate, dozens more around Lake Hayes itself and a further 700 sections proposed in the new neighbouring subdivision, Shotover Country. However, the nearest convenience stores were in Frankton.
The assessment of Lake Hayes Estate by environmental planning consultant Boffa Miskell, in its report presented to a Queenstown Lakes District Council subcommittee in June 2011, was between ''acceptable'' and ''less successful'', and the estate's out-of-town location without appropriate services was ''a major urban design concern''.
The report said the 10-year-old estate would be ''more successful'' had it been treated as a ''standalone village'' with shops and sufficient amenities to create a village centre and destination for residents.
The trust was completing the final 10 properties of its 27-lot development. All 27 were pre-sold into the trust's Shared Ownership or Rent Saver programmes.
The trust also facilitated the establishment of Little Rockets Educare on the site through the sale of land to child-care centre operators.
