The Environment Court has approved a controversial retirement village in Meadowstone, Wanaka, overturning a Queenstown Lakes District Council decision refusing consent for the development.
Retirement village developer Stoney Creek Village Ltd (SCVL) appealed to the Environment Court against the QLDC consent refusal decision two years ago.
A consent order upholding the appeal has now been issued by the court following a mediation process between SCVL, the district council, the Otago Regional Council, Meadowstone residents and other parties.
SCVL originally proposed a 97-unit retirement village on the 1.84ha site on Mt Aspiring Rd, at the entrance to the Meadowstone subdivision.
A group of Meadowstone residents and other property owners formed Sensible Development 4 Wanaka and campaigned against the development on the grounds it would destroy the residential community of the neighbourhood.
SCVL submitted an amended resource consent application for an 85-unit village, which was the subject of a December 2009 hearing.
The commissioners declined consent in 2010, citing as reasons the potential flood hazards from Stoney Creek - which runs through the middle of the site - and significant adverse effects from the proposed development's "bulk and density".
The final plans, agreed on by all the parties involved in the appeal, are for 73 residential units, with significant modifications to the buildings' style and architecture.
Building height has also been reduced to largely comply with a 7m maximum height covenant placed on the site by Meadowstone developer Allan Dippie.
Jan Caunter, lawyer for the Sensible Development 4 Wanaka group, said while she understood a lot of the residents still did not want anything built on the site, the majority of them had decided the final design was something they could live with.
"The final result from the residents' perspective is much better because it's less industrial looking.
"The first proposal was quite large blocks of apartment-type things and this one is more townhouses," Ms Caunter said.
"Apart from the fact that it was a better design, it actually opened the site up more to enable views through the site instead of them being blocked everywhere."
SCVL planner Mark Brown, of Christchurch, said his client Allen Patrick Peters, one of three SCVL directors, was overseas and unable to comment.
