Board member Mike O'Connor had asked district council project manager Rob Darby why there had been such a delay in the release of a report outlining the community governance and decision-making options for the scheme at Cardrona.
Mr Darby said the report was due at the end of the month from Arrowtown-based consultant Rationale Ltd, which had been engaged at the end of March. Ms van Uden interjected and asked why the work could not have been undertaken in-house, as it had been for other community schemes throughout the district.
"Cardrona is certainly a lot more complex than a normal situation," Mr Darby said.
"It has to be an extremely clear process on how the community scheme is devised and resolved."
That was a job that required "quite a few clever people", he said.
"You know what I'm going to say to that, don't you? Doesn't the council have clever people?" Ms van Uden responded.
"It's something that we should have the capacity to sort out ourselves."
Mr Darby later told the Otago Daily Times Cardrona was complex because its ratepayers ranged from "purely residential" to major commercial stakeholders, and those with large areas of land with "almost unlimited development potential" and visitor accommodation overlay.
"The ratepayers and stakeholders within the township are really quite diverse in their scale and nature."
He said in recent months "a number of senior council officers" had been focused on finalising the long-term plan so the decision to engage a consultant came down to a "case of resources".
"Yes there are intelligent people in council, but they're also quite busy."
Since the meeting, he had forwarded information on Cardrona's proposed wastewater scheme analysis to QLDC chief executive Debra Lawson, as requested by Ms van Uden.
