The Minty family has partially succeeded in its second attempt to gain resource consent for a four-lot subdivision of a 137ha farm on the western shores of Lake Wanaka.
Their company, Sharpridge Trust Ltd, recently sought to subdivide the rural property into four lots and create three residential building platforms on lots one, two and three.
The largest lot, lot four (95.9ha), was to be amalgamated with lot one and continue as a future working farm.
The application attracted 57 public submissions, with 12 opposed.
Commissioners David Clarke and Leigh Overton recently released a decision permitting the subdivision, amalgamation and two of the three building platforms.
The Environment Court, in 2002, denied subdivision consent for six 20ha lots but indicated a four-lot subdivision could be acceptable if certain suggestions were taken on board.
The commissioners said the family had largely taken up the suggestions, except with the lot two building platform.
The family's decision to surrender a separate consent for two farm buildings and a vineyard was a positive effect, they said.
The lot two building platform was rejected because of its prominence and cumulative effects with other houses, creating more than minor adverse effects on landscape character and amenity.
"As you round a corner of the track coming south from Damper Bay, any dwelling and associated domestic activity is going to be directly in front of you, at a similar elevation. It will continue in front of you for up to 400m and as you get down to the flat area below the house, where unfenced reserve land flows into pastoral land, you will almost feel like you are intruding into someone's private section," the commissioners said.
They accepted buildings did not need to be invisible. They also said they had given less emphasis to views from Ironside Hill than in previous decisions about the site.
Lake Environmental's consultant planner Andrew Henderson recommended at the hearing that consent for the lot two building platform be withheld.
The Upper Clutha Environmental Society's spokesman Julian Haworth opposed building platforms on lots two and three.
The property sits between the lake shore reserve and Mt Aspiring Rd, 4km from Wanaka township towards Glendhu Bay.
It includes two wetlands, a stream and regenerating native plants.
A dominant feature is Ironside Hill, and the Millennium Track between Wanaka and Glendhu Bay runs along the eastern boundary.
