Originally hailing from California I have witnessed first hand what Mr. Boult and the QAC are envisioning. To be honest, they are not being transparent with the community as to what will transpire if they are allowed to proceed with the twin airport proposal.
Mr. Boult noted that "Key is for Wanaka to service its own base" which is complete nonsense. The majority of visitors are coming to Queenstown and not Wanaka.
For starters, neither airport is well suited for the numbers of visitors envisioned. Queenstown is surrounded by mountains and Lake Wakatipu has always been a challenging environment for commercial aircraft movements. Night flights were just recently approved. The Queenstown community is up in arms over the noise signatures and it is nearly close to its full commercial capacity.
Yet all it will take is a A-320 jet to crash into the Countdown, a subdivision in Frankton or Lake Wakatipu and everyone will be wondering, why did they every allow the airport to built here in the first place?
That brings me to the expansion of the Wanaka airport. It is similarly improperly located to the proximity of Wanaka, Luggate, and the surrounding Hawea area.
We live in an Outstanding Landscape Area, that’s why people flock here. Why don’t they have an airport in the Grand Canyon? You guessed it, it’s inappropriate. Do we want Wanaka to become another Byron Bay, with an airport?
That is one of the reasons Air New Zealand has called for all parties to consider a “purpose built airport” that "future proofs" the transportation needs of the Otago region.
Not a band aid, “she’ll be right” approach that is currently be promoted by the Mayor and the QAC.
More importantly I personally believe the QLDC and Central Government have put the proverbial cart before the horse.
They are proposing an airport that will bring greater tourism numbers to the area. However from Mayor Jim Boult’s own admission we do not currently have the infrastructure, nor the means to pay for it.
At any given time there are 32 tourists in the QLDC to each ratepayer. Christchurch ratio is 3 to one, and Auckland is one to 1. However tourism infrastructure is solely paid for on the backs of ratepayers. Hence Mr. Boult’s well-intentioned referendum on a bed tax to help fund it. However the accommodation sector is up in arms as to the proposal.
But the bed tax is not a given, nor will the infrastructure be in place to keep pace with the envisioned growth, even if the funding was there.
My farm is adjacent to the Mt Roy car park. I attached this photo I took tonight of two Chinese girls that came up to my farm and asked to use my toilet. This has happened so many times I can not remember.
The Mt. Roy track is operated by DOC. By DOC’s number, 84,000 people walk that track a year, albeit they have two toilets! One at the top and one near the top. The car park expansion that was built last year was half of what was required. The QLDC will write up to 40 parking tickets a day. The QLDC rules on toilets per visitor are one for the first 50 patrons, and 1 per next 50. At 2386 visitors a day they should be required to have 47! No wonder young Chinese ladies need to use my bathroom.
Freedom Campers: Central government, in a knee jerk fix to ratepayers call for the banning of freedom campers funded two freedom camping sites in Wanaka with showers and toilets. There are five private campgrounds in the Wanaka area. None near capacity. However Central Government funded these free campgrounds in direct competition to these hard working folks that pay rates, provisional and incomes tax and employ staff. What’s next free food kitchens?
A little known fact is that every home that is built in Wanaka there is a $30,000 community development fee that goes right back to the mothership Queenstown. That money is supposed to pay for supporting infrastructure for roading etc to that respective subdivision. Where is the roading for the 3000 + North Lake and Kikuwai subdivisions? There are over 4000 new home sites approved for Hawea, and what did NZTA do but install traffic lights at the two lane Albert town bridge. Where is the foreword thinking with this? Clearly we do not have the roading to support expanded tourism.
SO who benefits from tourism? A small percentage of tourism operators, however the big winners are Central Government because every dollar spent, they earn 15 cents, so does the QLDC as they are benefactors of that lolly scramble.
But who pays for the tourism infrastructure? Ratepayers. Not only in infrastructure but more importantly on the impact of our daily lives.
Clearly the QLDC is not being transparent with their plans for the Wanaka airport, and even if they were, we do not have the infrastructure nor the ability to fund the infrastructure to support the QLDC’s tourism dreams.
Let them first build and pay for the tourism separately from ratepayers, and then make well informed transparent proposals with the communities acceptance on increasing tourism.
And yes, I let the young ladies use my toilet and gave them a ride back to the Mt Roy Carpark and let a nice young backpacker sleep in my shed. It's the Kiwi way, isn't it?
- John Levy
