Decision reserved on golf resort

The McRae family of Glendhu Station are considering if they can provide more public access and undertake more native vegetation regeneration, in return for the right to develop part of their farm into a multimillion-dollar golfing resort.

The details of the environmental compensation are still being worked through and are not likely to be known for several weeks.

Environment Court Judge Jon Jackson yesterday reserved his decision in the Parkins Bay golf resort case that has been heard in Wanaka over the past two weeks, without indicating whether the consent is likely to be approved.

Environment Court decisions can take more than three months to be written up.

Before he closed the case, Judge Jackson asked the applicant's lawyer, Mark Christensen, to find out if his clients would consider making more offers of environmental compensation "along the lines" sought by the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust last week and suggested by landscape architect Ralf Kruger yesterday.

The applicant, Parkins Bay Preserve Ltd, has been given until March 19 to file the closing submissions to the court.

Mr Christensen told Judge Jackson he was already working on it.

"I do have instructions and I am completing the details.

"It will involve additional tracks and additional covenants on various areas that have been subject to discussion.

"As soon as that is finalised, that will be added to a final submission," Mr Christensen said.

The McRae family owns Glendhu Station, where the $10 million to $12 million golf course would be built.

Arrowtown golf course designer John Darby has assisted them with the project and he is the sole director of Parkins Bay Preserve Ltd.

The shareholding can be traced back through a variety of Companies Office documents to businessmen George Kerr, of Queenstown and Alan Richardson, of Arrowtown.

The applicants obtained Queenstown Lakes District Council consent in 2008 but that was appealed by Wanaka holiday home owner Dennis Thorn, the Upper Clutha Environmental Society and the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust.

Mr Thorn and the society was seeking to overturn the consent on the grounds the area is outstanding natural landscape and cannot sustain a development of such a scale.

It includes 42 residential/visitor accommodation units, lakeside clubhouse and other facilities.

The trust does not seek to overturn the consent and has indicated if a better network of walking and mountain-biking trails had been offered, it would have withdrawn from the appeal.

All appellants have rejected the applicant's argument the development is an exceptional one that enhances an existing hub of recreation.

They say the existing recreational opportunities are not significantly enhanced by the trails that have been offered.

Mr Kruger, an expert landscape witness for Mr Thorn, was asked by Judge Jackson on Tuesday to "consider the hypothesis there is something going for the proposal, but there may not be enough environmental compensation".

He then asked Mr Kruger to consider several matters overnight and provide supplementary evidence yesterday.

Mr Kruger came back with a document he had worked on until the small hours of the morning and was immediately challenged by QLDC lawyer Graeme Todd, who sought to strike large portions of it from the court record.

Judge Jackson declined to do that and reassured the witness his efforts were appreciated.

Judge Jackson said while he appreciated Mr Todd had no time to prepare himself to cross-examine the material Mr Kruger provided, there was nothing in it that should worry him or anyone else involved in the case.

The judge asked Mr Kruger to mark a map with an area near the Glendhu Bluffs and a cattle corridor, which he said the landowners could de-stock and allow revegetation, plus do some selective planting.

Questioned by Mr Christensen, Mr Kruger agreed most of that area was already included in an area set aside by the applicants for ecological enhancement.

Judge Jackson noted Mr Kruger's concerns about future cumulative development in the Glendhu and Parkins Bay areas and said that issue had "also been exercising my mind quite a lot".

However, the court was bound by case law precedent to consider each application in the order they arrived.