After years of work gaining the necessary consents and zoning to build an alpine residential and visitor accommodation village in the Cardrona Valley, the developers of Mt Cardrona Station have put the 134ha high-country property on the market.
The development, on the western side of Cardrona Valley Rd on the elevated terraces above the Cardrona township, is owned by Mt Cardrona Station Ltd.
It contains all of the land subject to the Queenstown Lakes District Council's plan change 18, which allowed for the creation of the Mt Cardrona Station special zone. The plan change will go before the full council on Tuesday for ratification.
Mt Cardrona Station Ltd's sole director Chris Morton said the company was approached by the council in 2006 to consider creating a new zone in place of the rural visitor zone "which all parties considered inappropriate".
"There was always two goals. One was to create the zone, another was to build it," Mr Morton told the Otago Daily Times.
"We've spent about six years creating this great new zone in partnership with the council and the local community and we feel it's probably an opportunity now for a new party to take it forward to fruition."
Mr Morton believed the development would be a "great asset" to the Cardrona Valley in the future.
The property is being marketed nationally and internationally by Warren Hutt of CBRE on behalf of Mt Cardrona Station Ltd.
Mr Hutt said the development's master plan would create what would become known as Mt Cardrona Station Village, a mix of commercial, retail, residential and visitor accommodation, alongside educational and recreational facilities; all catering for up to 3000 people.
The plan provided for between 350 and 500 low and medium-density residential lots, plus a high-density area suitable for a variety of commercial uses or up to 1000 visitor and apartment units.
"The land zoning and master plan have been designed using the most recent international thinking. The resulting plan is a sympathetic design that includes 40ha of development land and around 94ha of open space," Mr Hutt said.
The proposed plan change dates back to a Cardrona community workshop in 2003, where it was identified that the development of an existing 17ha zone at the base of the Cardrona ski area could create some significant negative effects.
The key objective of the plan change was to reduce the potential visual impact of the development of the rural visitor zone at the base of the Cardrona skifield on the outstanding natural landscapes of the Cardrona Valley.
The plan change proposed moving the location of the existing zone from alongside Carrona Valley Rd to a position on the terraces above the road and developing a special zone based around a detailed structure plan.
In September this year, the Environment Court upheld the council's 2009 decision to approve plan change 18, after another Cardrona developer, Brooklynne Holdings Ltd, appealed to the Environment Court, mainly over landscape principle concerns.
Expressions of interest in the development are being sought by December 19.
