The developers of a retirement village in Wanaka met a group of angry residents opposed to the plan on Tuesday.
The pre-hearing resource consent meeting was called by the Queenstown Lakes District Council planning and regulatory body Lakes Environmental and involved the developers of the proposed Stoney Creek retirement village.
People who had made submissions to the developer's resource consent application for a 10-building, 97-unit apartment complex, were also invited to the pre-hearing meeting.
The Otago Daily Times was turned away from the meeting.
Lakes Environmental resource consent manager Rachel Beer said under the provisions of the Resource Management Act, a meeting between resource consent applicants and submitters was considered a "non-prejudicial" pre-hearing meeting and, as such, was not a public forum.
About 60 people attended the meeting, where Stoney Creek Village Ltd's (SCVL) planning consultant Mark Brown outlined his client's proposed development at a 1.83ha site at the entrance to the Wanaka suburb Meadowstone.
Some Meadowstone residents have formed a protest group in opposition to the developer's apartment-complex proposal.
Meadowstone resident Sam McLeod described the atmosphere during the meeting as "very hostile".
SCVL director Tony Hannon could not be contacted.
The proposal is scheduled to have a publicly notified resource consent hearing-date set down, after a commissioner's report from Lakes Environmental is released.
A separate resource consent application from the developers to cut down two historic ash trees, blocking an existing legal public unformed road the developers want to use to access the site, is scheduled to come before the Wanaka Community Board this month.
