A proposal for further residential development around the western shoreline of Lake Wanaka in an outstanding natural landscape should be turned down, a council planner says.
Sharpridge Trust has applied to the Queenstown Lakes District Council for a third building platform on a 137ha property next to Lake Wanaka, 5km from Wanaka township towards Glendhu Bay.
The trust already had approval for two residential building platforms which would extend the boundaries of the subdivision.
A hearing to consider the proposal will be held at Edgewater, in Wanaka, tomorrow.
Council senior planner Hanna Afifi has recommended the application be refused, as adverse effects of the development had not been appropriately addressed.
The proposal would lead to a reduction of 19.6ha of land designated for passive revegetation and would have ''moderately significant'' adverse effects on the outstanding natural landscape because of the cumulative effects of further extending a ''ribbon of residential development'' along the western shore of the lake.
Nor had potential effects on archaeological sites been addressed in the application.
Based on an assessment by the council's consultant landscape architect Marion Read, lake users would be the most adversely affected by views of the development, Ms Afifi's report said.
Dr Read considered one proposed building platform would extend the built form along the western side of Lake Wanaka by more than 2km, reducing the openness and natural character of the lake margins.
Five submissions objected to Sharpridge Trust's application, 77 supported it and one was neutral.
Among opponents was the Upper Clutha Environmental Society, which said approval of the application would result in a ''row of lakeside development'' which would have adverse visual effects on the public's experience of the surrounding area and degrade the landscape integrity of important lakeside ice-scoured features.
Submissions in support of the application said the subdivision's platforms and buildings were appropriate, the majority of the site would continue to be used for rural farming purposes, a dwelling was required for management of the farm blocks and the applicant should be able to do as they wish on their land.
Declining the application would discourage landowners from providing public access across their land because of implications faced in future resource consent applications, supporting submitters said.
In November, one of the property's owners, Gill Lucas, of Wanaka, said her late father, Jack Minty, had given permission for the Millennium Track to pass through adjoining land.
That had ''backfired'' on the family, as more people had a right to object to what she and her three brothers - the Sharpridge Trust - wanted to do with their property.
