Following a February hearing, panel members and councillors Calum MacLeod and Ella Lawton recommended a decision on granting a new 33-year lease to the society to extend its building by 112% be deferred until a management plan for the reserve had been completed.
Their recommendation followed opposition from neighbours who said the Queenstown Lakes District Council would be open to legal challenges if it approved the bigger building without a management plan in place.
At this week's Wanaka Community Board meeting, APL property manager Joanne Conroy said while management plans were required under the Reserves Act, they were not ''forced'' on authorities.
However, ''it's always hard to manage conflicting uses on a reserve without the management plan in place'', she said.
A plan would take time to develop and cost about $20,000.
Board member Mike O'Connor said it was ''unfair to stop well-meaning local people'' from pursuing a building project which could cost tens of thousands of dollars more in the two years it would probably take to establish a management plan and obtain a new lease and resource consent.
Ms Lawton said the plan was an opportunity for the community to ''take stock'' of how an important and central reserve was used and the only argument against deferring a decision on the society's application appeared to be time, of which there was plenty.
''We can sit around the table trying a conciliatory approach, trying to sort out an outcome for the society with other members of the community, and start the reserve plan process,'' district councillor and board member Lyal Cocks said.
Mrs Conroy said unlike the rugby club's recent lease renewal at the reserve, which attracted no objections, the A&P society's application had submitters ''vehemently opposed'' who were likely to continue to challenge it ''with all their might'', even with a management plan in place.
Setting up talks in the meantime was therefore ''probably a sensible thing to do'', she said.
During the board meeting's public forum, A&P society junior vice-president and building committee chairman Grant Ruddenklau said his personal view - not that of the society - was the process had been ''hijacked'' by neighbours with a not-in-my-backyard attitude.
Reserve neighbour John Baynes said Mr Ruddenklau's ''rather vitriolic attack'' was unjustified.
''No-one has any problem with the building there at the moment. It's the excess and increase and total overriding presence this [proposed] building would have.''
The board recommended the council develop a reserve management plan in the 2015-16 financial year and that a report on council-led negotiations between reserve neighbours and the society be reconsidered at the board's August meeting.
