Options for the short-term future of the course came before the Queenstown Lakes District Council meeting yesterday, including monthly or three-year leases, operation of the course by Lakes Leisure, or recreation redevelopment at the end of its lease with the QLDC.
The Queenstown Lakes District Council decided yesterday the course should continue to be used for golf until the land is needed. It will ask the course operator, the Queenstown Golf Club, to decide whether it would continue to run the course, or hand it to council-controlled company Lakes Leisure.
The golf club's lease with the airport expired last year, but it had been occupying the land on a month-by-month basis, with the airport advising the land would be required in 2020.
Its council lease expires next year, and in 2003 the Queenstown Golf Club, which operates the course, was advised the lease would not be renewed in its current form.
Community services general manager Paul Wilson said in a report to the council that NZTA required a "significant part of the course" for Frankton Flats road access, as would the Queenstown Events Centre Trust, to cater for additional sports fields.
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times after the hearing, Queenstown Golf Club chief executive Michael Shattock was pleased with the council's decision, which he called "a significant move forward".
" We have been wanting to speak to all the parties involved now for a long time ... It's a positive move forward, and I am looking forward to the debate."
