Damper Bay Estate Ltd is applying for a High Court judicial review of a resource consent that permitted two local authorities to extend Wanaka's lakeside Millennium Track past their property.
The company alleges eight breaches of the track-construction consent conditions by the Otago Regional Council and the Queenstown Lakes District Council as well as alleging part of the track is on its land, without consent.
The company is also applying for Environment Court enforcement and declaratory orders.
The company's consultant planner, Mitchell Partnerships, has also said the QLDC has not given the company approval to peg out a track realignment on council-owned land, preventing all parties from considering whether there would be a change in the visual effects of a lakeside housing development from the realignment.
After "considerable attempts to resolve the issue" with both local authorities, there was "no other option but to proceed with legal action", the Mitchell Partnerships memorandum dated February 14 says.
Wanaka Community Board chairman Lyal Cocks yesterday said he knew the councils had been working on solutions and was surprised to hear the Queenstown Lakes District Council had not approved pegging of the alternative alignment.
"We have to get it sorted out.
That is news to me.
I am a bit surprised.
I don't know where a statement like that would come from," Cr Cocks said.
Queenstown Lakes District Council corporate and regulatory general manager Roger Taylor yesterday said he had been unable to clarify what the concerns were with pegging the alternative alignment but expected to be able to provide more information today.
The parties' inability to resolve the track issues means it would be prejudicial to proceed with next week's resource consent hearing of Damper Bay Estates' application to build six lakeside houses.
The hearing was first set down for a week in December last year but, after track issues arose, was rescheduled to begin next Monday.
Queenstown Lakes District Council commissioner Trevor Shiels has released a minute of commissioners stating the adjournment is "entirely appropriate" and expressing no views on the validity of the court proceedings.
Mr Shiels also released the Mitchell Partnerships memorandum.
Mr Shiels has requested the applicant update him by April 15 on the progress of the court proceedings.
He has not rescheduled the hearing.
The Damper Bay Estates Ltd proposal is for a three-lot subdivision and six houses on 193ha of rural general land overlooking Lake Wanaka.
The company's directors, Craig Heatley and Trevor Farmer, of Auckland, and Mark Taylor, of Queenstown, want to build two houses each.
The application is unpopular.
It drew 118 submissions, with 110 in opposition.
Queenstown Lakes District Council consultant planner Andrew Henderson has recommended the proposal be rejected for a range of reasons, including that it is inappropriate for the site and would have significant adverse visual effects when viewed from parts of the Millennium Track and the lake.
He and Lakes Environmental landscape architect Dr Marion Read have been asked to reconsider the effects, using the proposed track realignment.
