Granting a Queenstown bar's appeal to use its outdoor deck and exceed the district plan noise limit by 10dBA would be "an ad hoc and isolated answer to a wider problem being experienced by the people of Queenstown", the Environment Court says.
Guilty As Ltd, trading as Guilty Bar, on Ballarat St lost its appeal against a Queenstown Lakes District Council decision to refuse a consent variation which would have allowed 60 to 70 patrons to use the 70sq m wooden deck, from 10pm to 1am, three nights a week and on public holidays, and to exceed the noise limit.
The application attracted 54 submissions - 50 in support and four against.
Judge Fred McElrea, environment commissioner Charles Manning and deputy environment commissioner Owen Borlase issued their dismissal last week, after a hearing in the Queenstown District Court on May 10.
In their decision, the panel said acoustic evidence was dubious and it did not convince the court the effects of the change would be minor.
Planning evidence from both the council and Guilty As "failed to address crucial issues" arising under the Resource Management Act, under which the application had to be assessed, the panel said.
They agreed with the council's commissioners in 2008 and with the three parties to the proceedings there could be "significant precedent effects in the immediate area, and possibly more widely, if this appeal were to be allowed".
The effects were not addressed by either of the planning witnesses, despite the issue being raised both by the commissioners and the parties concerned, the decision said.
Granting the application would be an "ad hoc" answer to an issue the council was tackling by reviewing the district plan's provisions concerning noise.
The court acknowledged the parties to the appeal considered the apparent lack of monitoring of noise from outdoor areas of licensed premises late at night, and an alleged lack of enforcement of existing noise limits in the town centre among the plan's problems.
Judge McElrea and commissioners Mr Manning and Mr Borlase said professional witnesses did not address the effects of the proposal on any property or site except the building opposite Guilty Bar, owned by one of the parties.
"The district plan requires that those effects be assessed on other sites ... This flaw appears to derive from reliance on an affected party consent given by Ngai Tahu Property Ltd," the decision said.
