Rock pillars installed at the entrances to the Cardrona village to define its boundaries and alert motorists of speed zone thresholds are not finding favour with everyone.
Two large oblong rocks appeared on the south side of the village last week jutting out of the gravel on either side of the Crown Range road. Another two are lying at the northern entrance to the settlement, ready to be lifted into place.
The rocks were a way of addressing Cardrona Valley residents' long-held frustrations at the high speeds motorists travel through the township by creating "visual friction" around a built-up area, Cardrona Residents and Ratepayers Society (CRRS) vice-chairman Ben Gordon said.
"Meaning you feel like you're coming into an area that would be wrong to be speeding in."
The rocks also aimed to give the township "a defined edge, an entrance and an exit, a welcoming, a sense of history".
However, at a Wanaka Community Board meeting this week, Cr Jude Battson said the rocks looked unnatural in the location and in the manner in which they had been placed.
She said they were a "waste of money".
"I appreciate that the community association wanted to have something up there that delineated the entrance to Cardrona ... but I didn't think it was the right spot. They just don't look natural," Cr Battson told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
"What we need to be looking at is what's appropriate for the wider public and the aesthetics. How much money did it cost to put those rocks there?"
The Queenstown Lakes District Council's Wanaka capital works project manager, Rob Darby, said the rocks had a "technical function", were "not just cosmetic", and would eventually blend into the landscape.
"Right now the rocks look very dominant but by the time they've got plantings and have a speed sign in front of them on both approaches ... it will probably look like they've always been there."
Mr Darby said the rocks were a minor component of the two road rehabilitation projects under way in Cardrona and on the Crown Range. The projects, costing $3.1 million, are expected to be finished by early April.
"In the scheme of these projects the cost of [installing] these rocks is really negligible."
The rocks were provided by Cardrona Valley farmer and CRRS member Tim Scurr, who has been pushing for their installation for more than 10 years.
"That's been our number one priority, to slow the traffic," he said.
The granite rocks had historic value as they were from an old river source that once flowed from the head of the Landsborough River, through Lake Hawea and the Cardrona Valley.
Plaques would be fixed to them, welcoming people to Cardrona and raising awareness of pedestrians ahead.
The rocks will help signpost a new speed zone threshold, if proposed amendments to the council's 2009 speed limits bylaw are passed, specifically a lowering of the 70kmh speed limit through the township to 50kmh, and extending the 70kmh boundaries to where the rocks are.
Queenstown Lakes District Council transport manager Denis Mander said the draft bylaw would be presented again to the council, following a technical oversight relating to concerns the process used to determine proposed speed limit changes in Arrowtown was not robust enough.
At the close of the previous consultation process, 34 submissions had been received. The council is contacting submitters to advise them of the change in process.
Dates for the new round of consultation would be advised once the amended bylaw proposal had been adopted.
