Development piles on top of development as growth in the Upper Clutha spurts.
Many are uneasy and even unhappy as the face of the region changes.The quiet beauty is being replaced by the buzz of business and the buzz of building saws.
The latest headline list is striking. The Silverlight Studios $280 million development on the outskirts of Wanaka was granted resource consent last week, and a partnership has applied to develop 125 sections on a block behind Luggate.
Across at Lake Hawea, one developer has completed a 90-lot development and received approval to construct the town’s first large commercial precinct. Last week, an application was being put together for another neighbourhood plan.
Above Cardrona, the first packages were released last month in a $650 million 400-home development.
In Wanaka itself, houses are rising across the town. In the past 11 months to the end of November, 754 residential building consents were issued for the Wanaka ward, an extraordinary number. The level is higher than both 2020 and pre-Covid 2019.
Then, there are the proposals for a huge expansion of Wanaka airport to work in tandem with Queenstown and the possibility of international flights. Meanwhile, Christchurch Airport is making a play for a jet airport near Tarras.
The Wanaka airport plans sparked vigorous upset as Wanaka residents fear the loss of tranquillity.
Wanaka 50 years ago was a small agricultural town of only several hundred people servicing the Upper Clutha supplemented by a domestic tourism flood in mid-summer.
Since then, growth predictions have been consistently confounded and underestimated. The town had a permanent population of 8403 last year, according to Queenstown Lake District Council figures. The population is expected to rise to 10,557 by 2030 and to 15,220 by 2050.
The figures already look far too light — even if the future is difficult to predict.
Wanaka also spreads out further because of the high proportion of holiday homes, and it hosts hundreds of thousands of tourists. While it relies less than Queenstown on overseas arrivals, expect another gush when New Zealand’s border restrictions are lifted.
The Upper Clutha and Queenstown and the Wakatipu have fundamental characteristics that propel them through both good and hard times.
The "hero" landscapes, the climate, the lakes, the rivers and the mountains attract permanents and visitors. That "progress" has accelerated and will continue.
No wonder movie studio backers were convinced. The staff, the crew and the cast are all drawn to such environments. This is where so-called "creatives" want to live, work and play.
Although Covid smashed many of the region’s tourist businesses, it also highlighted the area’s popularity.
Wanaka could not have paid for the publicity when an Auckland couple escaped the lockdown. It was prominent news for days, every time underlining the potent lure of the town.
The district already caches distant workers and business owners. The Covid migration to remote and online working from home will accentuate this trend.
Wanaka was never supposed to be another Queenstown but is heading that way. It will not take too many years before Wanaka’s streets become crowded, before significant traffic issues arise.
New Zealanders often worship the god of growth, puffing with pride at the latest reports of expansion.
While a shrinking population is disastrous, escalating growth and all that goes with that appropriately is being questioned more these days.
This is more so in areas like the Upper Clutha where the collateral costs of expansion become readily apparent.
But, whatever the understandable concerns and whatever the opposition, the fact is that a tide of people from New Zealand and the world want to be part of what the area offers.
That tide, for worse and for better, is well-nigh impossible to stop.
