Approval for new housing areas welcomed

Four new special housing areas (SHAs) around Queenstown are desperately needed, their backers say.

Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith yesterday announced Government approval for the SHAs, which fast-track the rezoning of 40ha of land to residential and create the potential for 490 homes.

The SHAs were essential for Queenstown's thriving tourism industry, which needed more housing for its growing workforce, Dr Smith said. 

The locations of the new housing areas are: Arthurs Point Rd (4.17ha greenfield site, potential for 70 homes); Gorge Rd (12.8ha brownfield site, potential for up to 150 lots); Arrowtown Lifestyle Retirement Village (12.5ha greenfield site, potential yield of up to 175, plus a 100-bed aged care facility); and Shotover Country (11.11ha greenfield site, potential for 95 homes).

Arrowtown Lifestyle Retirement Village chief executive officer Aaron Armstrong said the region needed the project "desperately'' as it would free up a lot of housing.

"There's certainly strong demand from a lot of people in the region.

"They'll all be selling their houses to move into our retirement village. That's really the basis of us being a special housing area.''

The project - a 50-50 venture with landowners the Monk family - would comprise 120 villas, 55 apartments and a 100-bed care facility.

The company hoped to have its resource consent in to the Queenstown Lakes District Council by the end of next month.

"All things going well, we'd like to start construction before the end of the year.''

Queenstown Mayor Vanessa van Uden, whose council proposed the Gorge Rd SHA, welcomed the announcement.

"It's a new opportunity for people to come up with proposals for [the] development that will add to the housing stock in our community.''

Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust chief executive officer Julie Scott said it was good news for the trust, which had agreements in place with the developers of three of the four SHAs.

"In some cases about 5% of the developed area will be transferred to the trust for community housing.''

The trust benefited in the form of land or cash contributions, or a land-and-house package.

Ms Scott said it did not yet have an arrangement in place for the Gorge Rd SHA.

It had been proposed by the council as a mechanism for encouraging development on that site, but no developers were involved yet.

The trust has more than 300 households on its waiting list.

The Government and the council signed the Queenstown Lakes Housing Accord in October 2014.

It allows qualifying SHA developments to be streamlined and fast-tracked.

The areas can now be rezoned residential in a matter of weeks, whereas the usual process might take three to five years.

Dr Smith said the accord was ‘‘gathering momentum'' and commended the council for its work in identifying land for development.

However, SHAs were just one of the measures needed to meet the high demand for housing from a growing population and successful economy.

Infrastructure and building industry capacity challenges needed to be met to get hundreds of homes built, he said.

Clutha-Southland MP Todd Barclay said the new SHAs would help address Queenstown's "huge housing shortage''.

"Special housing areas are one part of the solution to improving the housing issues in Queenstown, but we need to keep our foot on the accelerator.''

The council announced on Wednesday it had received an expression of interest for an SHA at Waterfall Park, near Arrowtown.

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