A "potpourri" of enhancements and clarifications relating to the Remarkables Park Special Zone were put under the microscope in Queenstown yesterday, during the first day of a resource consent hearing.
Remarkables Park Ltd's (RPL) private plan change 34 seeks to reconfigure some "activity area" boundaries and refine specific aspects of the zone.
Among the 13 matters addressed were making additional educational, health and daycare activities controlled activities rather than discretionary; "discrete" amendments to objectives to recognising the opportunity for additional ferry stopping points; and implementing amendments agreed between RPL and the Queenstown Airport Corporation to ensure controls relating to the cross-wind runway were consistent with the airport designation.
RPL counsel John Young, of Brookfields Lawyers, Auckland, told independent commissioners David Whitney, of Alexandra, Bob Nixon, of Christchurch and Brian Waddell, of Auckland, the comprehensive zone covered about 150ha at Frankton and provided for retail, commercial, residential, educational, visitor accommodation, recreational and community activities.
A low-density residential development and a shopping centre had already been established, with significant earthworks carried out across the site to enable further development and the formation of the Eastern Access Rd, which will link State Highway 6 near Glenda Dr to Remarkables Park.
The Environment Court had stated the appropriate test in determining if a plan provision was the most appropriate was whether it was "better" than the alternatives. Mr Young said PC34 met that test.
"It recognises and responds to established and proposed development within the Remarkables Park Special Zone; it recognises and provides for growth within the district, in particular growth in the demand for retail; it remedies uncertainties and anomalies; and it provides necessary flexibility to enable the landowner to advance the development of such a large zone."
Spatial economist Natalie Hampson said if all "zoned opportunities and proposed developments" were in place by 2021, town centre zones were likely to experience a decline in sales compared to 2009 under a medium growth outcome.
Those included the Remarkables Park Zone, including Plan Change 34, Queenstown Gateway and the Frankton Flats Special Zone.
Ms Hampson said care needed to be taken at the zoning stage to ensure capacity was enabled "at an appropriate time in relation to remaining capacity and future demand".
There would be a "substantial growth" in demand for retail and service floor space capacity in the resort to meet the long-term needs of the community and expansion of the shopping centre would help cater for it.
The hearing continues at the Copthorne Hotel today.
