Following a meeting involving 50 representatives from helicopter companies, rural landowners, the Department of Conservation (Doc) and Land Information New Zealand this week, "positive progress" had been made on the issue of helicopter consents in the Queenstown Lakes district.
Queenstown Lakes District Council chief executive Duncan Field said helicopter operators in the area were involved in a project to grant consents for landings at individual sites in the district.
The project had been initiated to enable commercial helicopter operations to comply with the district plan and, to date, 396 applications for helicopter operations had been received, with 95 consents issued to applicants.
The council resolved last month to hold a "round-table discussion" with operators to find a way forward which would avoid "unnecessary cost and bureaucracy", Mr Field said.
"I want to thank all those who attended the meeting [on Wednesday night] for their contribution to the discussions and their commitment to find a suitable means to avoid unnecessary cost and bureaucracy.
The shared experience had shown all parties where the "tough issues" were.
"We worked through several of these this week.
"More importantly, the meeting formulated a concept for moving on, which the council and Lakes Environmental representatives will now develop into a detailed proposal," he said.
Although most consents had been able to be issued on a non-notified basis, some would still involve a hearing before an independent commissioner.
"Arthurs Point is an example of that and a hearing will still proceed," Mr Field said.
Another issue discussed at the meeting was that helicopter activities must also be assessed for Doc concessions.
"The key conclusion was that we need to use more of the knowledge and expertise of organisations like Doc and we need to integrate our processes."
The Department of Conservation had indicated it aimed to complete processing renewal of concessions within about six months from when applications were received.
