Good-natured jibes were flying as the "cockies" and "hippies" of Hawea went head-to-head at a meeting to discuss rejuvenating the Hawea Domain on Wednesday night.
The meeting, attended by about 20 people, was called after several residents raised the possibility of using the 40ha domain for a community garden or farm, or for some other community use.
The domain is recreation reserve land outside Lake Hawea owned by the Queenstown Lakes District Council. Sixteen hectares are leased as farmland, an arrangement set to expire at the end of June 2012. A portion is used once a year by the Hawea Picnic Racing Club for its long-running post-Christmas meet.
Retired Hawea farmer and former Hawea Domain Board member Ian Kane gave a history of the site at the meeting and said a community garden could present "a lot of problems" and interfere with the leaseholder's activities.
"There's plenty of land in the district for that sort of thing and I think there'd be big issues if everybody started having a bit of garden [at the domain]," Mr Kane said.
Hawea Community Association committee member Errol Carr, who chaired the meeting, agreed there were other options for self-sustainability.
"Everybody who lives in Hawea has at least a quarter acre section ... if they want to grow a few veges or run chooks ... Most of us living in this community have the capacity to do that in our own backyard," Mr Carr said.
QLDC councillor Jude Battson, of Lake Hawea, and several others present spoke of the social and learning opportunities community gardens provided.
However, Hawea farmer Pat McCarthy said those in favour of the communal garden idea were "dreaming". He maintained the "cockies" of the district should continue to lease the land, although he was open to the idea of using it for sport and recreation. He also suggested the community garden advocates could better spend their time volunteering for the racing club, which was always short of helpers.
Farmer Ken Muir predicted the "mess people would leave behind at the garden would be obscene".
Domain Rd resident Gerry Shaw said the issue of water restrictions at the domain made the garden concept completely unrealistic.
To defuse the at times humorous clash of opinions, Hawea Flat resident Jeremy Bisson said the meeting was not just to promote "a bunch of hippies" gardening together, as alternative suggest-ions were welcomed.
"The community garden was just a spark of an idea," Mr Bisson said.
"The real question is: do we want to try and rejuvenate the domain for more community use?
"I personally think it's a wasted community asset in the hands of the QLDC."
Mr Carr cautioned any community planting venture at the domain should start small.
"You don't have to do it on a 30-acre or a 40-acre scale - you can do it on a half-acre scale."
The meeting had generated a "really good cross-section of comment" and people were urged to take proposals for the domain to the Hawea Community Association, which would in turn present them to the council, Mr Carr said.
The domain has been earmarked by the council for sports purposes as the Upper Clutha population grows.
