A Queenstown Lakes District Council plan change discriminated against farmers who had gone through tenure review or who gave informal access to their land, the Environment Court was told in Queenstown yesterday.
Federated Farmers has appealed against plan change 28, which amends the district plan's definition of public places to exclude trails.
The plan defines trails as any public access route legally created by an easement registered after December 11, 2007, excluding easements created by tenure review.
It was aimed at providing farmers with incentives to allow future trails on their land.
Federated Farmers counsel Phil Page said the organisation supported walking trails not being classed as public places.
However, the plan change did not go far enough as Federated Farmers wanted the plan change to include trails created out of tenure review, informal trails and those created before December 11, 2007.
Farmers were concerned about informal trails being part of public place provisions because any proposed development on adjacent land would be assessed for its impact on public views from the trails.
"A landowner might be disadvantaged by the provision of trails through their land because users of the trails or council officers might complain of views had from that trail," Mr Page said.
"Federated Farmers has no doubt that any farmer contemplating a resource consent application of any kind will be motivated to close their land to informal public access," he said.
A landowner could avoid the difficulties by granting a formal easement for the trail, but easements were expensive and inflexible.
The council was penalising farmers who did not create easements, he said.
"A mortgagee may not agree to the registration of an easement [and] the landowner loses control over who may access their land and when," Mr Page said.
Farmers wanted the freedom to change access routes depending on stock type, cultivation, fencing, irrigation and bio-security management practices, which they could not do with an easement.
The council's lawyer, Jayne Macdonald, said including all trails in the plan change could diminish the council's ability to effectively implement its district plan by reducing the locations from which the impacts of future development could be assessed.
"In exempting all trails, whenever created, there will be a risk that the council's ability to assess the visibility of development is reduced, and this will result in development that offends," she said.
She said the plan change only applied to a small proportion of trails and was an incentive for farmers who were reluctant to give access to private land.
"There is no evidence that farming, and farm-management operations or activities, are suffering because of the visibility of these activities from trails," she said.
Most farm-related resource consent applications were dealt with on a non-notified basis without any public input.
The appeal should not succeed because there was no evidence that farming activities and practices were disadvantaged by the plan change, she said.
The hearing continues today.
