A decision to publicly notify a resource consent application to move the Cinema Paradiso business into Wanaka's former Catholic church has angered the cinema operator, who says attempts to relocate have already spanned five years and cost nearly $150,000.
Varina Property Ltd, a company directed by Duffy Krook, of Australia, owns the former church in Brownston St and applied for land-use consent in December to relocate Cinema Paradiso there from its site in Ardmore St.
At a hearing last month, Commissioner David Whitney ruled the effects of the activity would be more than minor and the application should be notified, despite Lakes Environmental planners' recommendation it be processed on a non-notified basis - if written approvals were obtained from all adjoining neighbours.
"We were told initially that if we got the neighbours' consent and everybody on board then we wouldn't have to go through the notified consent," cinema operator Calum McLeod said.
"It's almost just delaying the inevitable, really."
In 2007, Mr McLeod's company, Calmac Ltd, was denied resource consent to build a two-screen cinema and "flashpacker" accommodation on a three-lot site at the intersection of State Highways 84 and 6 at the eastern approach to Wanaka.
"All up there's probably been close to $150,000 spent between Varina and ourselves trying to get an application in for a new cinema."
The cinema proposal is classified under the council's district plan as a non-complying discretionary activity on a site zoned low-density residential.
The adverse effects identified included those associated with "peripheral expansion rather than intensification of activity in the Wanaka town centre", blurring the clear definition of the edge of the town centre at Brownston St, pedestrian movement across Brownston St and the integrity of the District Plan.
