The entrepreneur-businessman was addressing the opening day of a resource consent hearing in Queenstown yesterday in his capacity as company director of The Hills Ltd, which has applied to build 17 houses, mainly subterranean, on the 18-hole championship golf course.
Lakes Environmental planners have recommended the consent be declined, saying the houses would have significant adverse effects on the environment and that the development was inappropriate.
But Mr Hill said he had gone to "unnecessary expense" to illustrate the innovative concept that the dwellings were underground and not visible.
"If you can't trust me to carry this out I would be quite surprised . . .
"It'll be the best that's ever been done. I'm adamant no-one will have any control outside the house itself.
"I want everything to flow naturally."
The hearing of the application, which has attracted 31 submissions, 24 in support, began yesterday before independent commissioners John Matthews and Andrew Henderson.
Mr Hill described how he had co-ordinated the development of a square mile of unprofitable deer farm land since the early 1990s into The Hills, rated one of the top 100 golf courses in the world, featuring an award-winning clubhouse.
The proposed village would be designed by the same architect and the concept had taken six years to finesse.
In response to Mr Matthews' questions, Mr Hill said The Hills would build the first dwelling to help get people's heads around the concept.
The company would sell one house to build one and there was no construction timeframe in mind: "It depends how hideous the economy is."
The Hills' counsel, Vanessa Robb, said the proposal was the most comprehensively designed and planned project within a visual amenity landscape to come before the Queenstown Lakes District Council.
Mrs Robb said Lakes Environmental planners had not only "significantly overstated the extent of the visibility of the development" from public places, but wrongly linked the visibility with an adverse impact on the landscape.
No Lakes Environmental concerns remained unanswered or unmitigated by The Hills, which had "a proven track record", she said.
The rural landscape was capable of absorbing the development.
The public reserve would provide "social and cultural benefits for the community" and $80,000 worth of plantings would help foster native species in a degraded ecology, she added.
Arrow Irrigation Company director Neil McDonald asked the hearing that water races near the proposed dwellings be piped and that there be no new plantings within 7m of the existing open races to enable maintenance.
Arrowtown resident Don Spary told the hearing he "strongly supported" the "adventurous, modern and well thought out" proposal and criticised the Lakes Environmental report.
Arrowtown resident John Martin read a letter of support from Lake Hayes Rd residents Murray and Clare Doyle, who were overseas.
The Doyles stated the proposal created an opportunity to "retain and enhance" a large block of land at the cost of creating a small number of home lots that would have minimal impact on the environment.
Mr Martin said, in his own right, the hearing was a "consultant's feast" of people imposing conditions on other people's lives.
Talk of fence lines, visual amenity and precedents in regards to density in the planners' report was "complete rubbish".
The hearing continues today.
