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A proposed amusement park complex opposite Wanaka Airport has been denied consent by the Environment Court, despite a judge voting in favour of the development.
Environment commissioners John Mills and Heather McConachy have upheld an appeal against a commercial entertainment facility, featuring kart racing, bumper boats, tenpin bowling and a cafe, on rural general land on the corner of State Highway 6 and Mt Barker Rd, proposed by former Invercargill businessman Ross Young, his wife Judith, and their son Eamon.
While the commissioners held the majority judgement and, therefore, the ultimate decision of the court, Judge Jon Jackson took a dissenting view and recommended the Queenstown Lakes District Council's 2010 decision to grant resource consent for the development be confirmed.
At a five-day hearing last July, the court heard appeals against the QLDC decision by Ulrich Staufenberg and Jeffrey and Margaret Feint, who live near the development site on Mt Barker Rd.
The neighbours said the proposal would adversely affect the rural experience of the area, largely because of its visibility and noise effects. They also expected the amusement park to set a precedent for further commercial development in the area. At the end of the hearing, Judge Jackson described it as a ''very tight case''.
In his decision, he said although the site was classified as being within a visual amenity landscape, it had ''very few, if any, Arcadian or pastoral qualities, as those terms are used in the district plan'', because of its low-quality pasture, power lines running through the site, adjacent roads, ''ugly'' pines on the property boundary and much larger commercial node (the airport and its buildings) across SH6.
He said the proposal used a small piece of ''nothing'' land, and the minor adverse effects were appropriately mitigated by the landscape plan and conditions.
There would also be gains for at least 20 years from the applicant's volunteered covenant to keep and improve the open character of the remainder of the property, Judge Jackson said.
Mr Mills and Ms McConachy found the size, scale and location of the entertainment complex was inappropriate in the visual amenity landscape and there was more appropriately zoned land nearby which could cater for the proposal, such as the Three Parks zone or the Windemere rural visitor zone across the road.
They noted Mt Barker Rd and SH6 provided a clear ''edge'' separating the commercial operations associated with the Wanaka Airport and the Have-A-Shot facility from the remainder of the rural general zone.
Allowing the entertainment complex proposal to breach that edge ''considerably weakens'' that boundary and ''opens the door for future like applications'', they said.
