"How much is too much development" is emerging as the single most important consideration in determining whether Cardrona couple Hil Stapper and Mario Kiesow can build a new home on Roys Peninsula.
Mr Kiesow and Ms Stapper, through their company Clevermaker Ltd, have applied for resource consent.
Commissioners Trevor Shiels and Lyal Cocks yesterday began what is expected to be a two-day hearing in Wanaka.
Roys Peninsula is designated as an outstanding natural feature.
The farmland has been fragmented into 12 lots, and five building platforms already exist.
Three houses have been built, another is subject to a recently approved resource consent and two other dwellings not located within a building platform have council approval.
One of those dwellings - the Matukituki Trust house - is under appeal to the Environment Court.
The Clevermaker proposal has attracted 23 submitters in support and one against.
Queenstown Lakes District Council planner Christian Martin has recommended the house can proceed but is warning Roys Peninsula "has reached, or is very close to reaching, the point beyond which further development would breach a threshold at which landscape character may be unavoidably degraded".
The sole opposer, the Upper Clutha Environmental Society, argues the threshold for cumulative effects has been reached already.
The society seeks conditions, should the commissioners be inclined to grant the consent.
Christchurch barrister Pru Steven told the commissioners yesterday her clients want to build a house and garage, requiring about 1500cu m of earthworks.
The house has a floor area of 377sq m.
Decks cover another 142sq m.
The garage has a floor area of 63sq m.
The dwelling itself comprises three, low-scale, rectangular, flat-roofed blocks linked by a lobby and a partially enclosed courtyard.
Evidence produced yesterday showed the house would not protrude above the skyline, vegetation would provide screening and the earthworks would embed the house into the hillside.
Mrs Steven said visibility was the key factor in assessing the most suitable site for the house.
It was reasonably difficult to see and the site was not the best site in terms of aspect and views for the applicants, she said.
Although it would be possible to see the Clevermaker house and two other neighbouring houses in one view, the Clevermaker house would not transcend the threshold at which the landscape was able to absorb the change, she submitted.
When questioned by the commissioners, Mrs Steven agreed they should also consider the cumulative effects of the Clevermaker development as if a third neighbour's proposed house had been consented.
That neighbour, the Matukituki Trust, has not started building yet because of an appeal by the society.
Evidence was given yesterday by architect Neil McDowell, landscape architect Alan Cutler and resource management consultant Mike Garland.
The hearing will continue today with evidence from submitters including the society.
