Visibility of houses development issue

Up to 22 houses proposed for a Luggate development could be waterfront properties if Contact Energy decides to build a dam near the small town, 10km east of Wanaka, the Environment Court heard yesterday.

Development company Luggate Holdings Ltd, associated with Queenstown business Jim Boult, is building the multi-staged 255-lot Luggate Park.

The Dunedin City Council's subsidiary company, Delta Utility Services, invested $4 million in stage 2 of Luggate Park last year.

Luggate Holdings Ltd's consultant planner, Alison Noble, told the court the dam was "neither likely or unlikely" at this stage. Cross-examined by QLDC lawyer Tony Ray, she said she did not have details of where the hydro-electricity facility might go. The information she had relied on was the mention of a hydro-electricity-designated area in the Queenstown Lakes District Plan.

Luggate Holdings' lawyer, Phil Page, of Dunedin, described the lots as an "opportunity to be taken". The land had no farming value, would be surrounded by rural residential development and "may one day be waterfront property to the proposed Luggate dam . . . the one certainty is that is is not a farm," Mr Page said.

The potential visibility of the houses is the main issue in the Environment Court appeal being brought by Luggate Holdings against the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

The appeal relates to stage 2B of the development, which was scaled back to 22 lots, after QLDC commissioners Sally Middleton and Michael Parker refused consent for 24 lots last year.

The remainder of the development is not affected and work on it has begun.

Zoning for the development is split between rural residential and rural general, with the bulk of the 255 lots on flatter rural general land.

Mr Page said "one of the great ironies of this case is that the council has chosen to grant consent for a fully urban-style development within the rural general zone (2A), but has chosen to decline consent for a peri-urban proposal that preserves significant areas of open space for the public benefit".

Luggate Holdings says the council requested the developer to go ahead using the resource consent process, rather than applying for a plan change.

Mr Ray confirmed the council believes a plan change is the most appropriate way is to relocate the zone boundary.

The case is further complicated by the existence of three separate treatments for a sensitive plateau rising above the paddocks that are now being converted into a residential park.

The plateau falls into the rural residential zone and a consent for an earlier version of the subdivision in 2005 permitted nine building platforms there.

When the plans were revised and resubmitted, the developers sought seven plateau dwellings.

However, commissioners Middleton and Parker said there would be significant visual effects.

Now, Luggate Holdings is asking for eight plateau dwellings, but has offered design controls to reduce the bulk and visibility of houses.

If consent cannot be obtained, Luggate Holdings will fall back on the 2005 consent for nine plateau lots.

Mr Page said the adverse effects from the most recent proposal were significantly less than the 2005 proposal. Landscaping was the "single defining issue".

Consultants had tried but could not resolve differences with council staff, he said.

Stage 2B was now "a substantially more expensive and less profitable project, including significant open space that would need landscaping, he said.

Mr Ray said the council did not agree that 2B now affected the environment to a lesser degree. The consented nine lots were already subject to district plan controls, except height restrictions, Mr Ray said.

The plateau was a "visual amenity landscape" and the district plan sought to avoid subdivision and development that was highly visible from public places.

The houses would not be able to be screened appropriately and would encourage urban sprawl, he said.

The decision of Judge Brian Dwyer and commissioners John Mills and Helen Beaumont was reserved.