Anne Steven takes a look at maps showing what the Wakatipu Basin or Cardrona Valley might look like if all consented developments were built and just knows they are wrong.
It's clearly time to talk.
"If the community doesn't get involved and contribute to the process of what they want their rural landscape to be ... If that is not clearly enunciated and expressed, we will have no framework for assessment. It will become a dog's breakfast," she said.
The maps provide a guide but Mrs Steven knows of even more consents that have been granted and are not shown.
"The most telling part of is in the triangle in Wakatipu Basin, at Speargrass Flat.
"I look at that and think 'Oh God, is that rural general? I don't think so'. There is very little genuine farmland on the Wakatipu Basin any more," she said.
Mrs Steven has become familiar with the district plan and rural areas since moving to Wanaka from Christchurch with her family 11 years ago.
She has worked on both sides of the rural fence, for developers (such as Infinity) and environmental advocates (such as the Upper Clutha Environmental Society).
Ethically, her loyalties must be to the plan, not her clients' causes.
And from what she has experienced, the rural rules are not working very well.
One way of redressing that is for people to involve planning and landscape architect expertise early in the plan.
If that happened, environmental advocates, applicants and the community would have a far better chance of reaching or influencing a win-win outcome, Mrs Steven says.
But if rules must be reassessed, a good starting point would be the overly repetitive assessment matters.
A more streamlined approach, better tied to objectives and policies, could help reduce workload and application costs, Mrs Steven said.
She also acknowledges an argument for reducing the number of landscape classifications.
Does the district need outstanding natural features, outstanding natural landscapes (Wakatipu), outstanding natural landscapes (district wide), visual amenity landscapes and other rural landscapes?
She agrees the Queenstown Lakes District Council could also clarify what "outstanding natural landscape" means, and "natural".
The courts have battered away at those issues and there is still a misunderstanding by some applicants that "natural" should only mean "indigenous" or exclude anything modified through farming, she said.
To many people, farmed areas are still "outstanding natural landscape" although the extent to which it is valued might differ, Mrs Steven said.
Visitors' points of view are also important, given the major role tourism has to play in the district.
And there is need for an emphasis on a healthy landscape, not just asking farmers to maintain a pretty landscape, she says.
Another "bugbear" is whether the rural area rules adequately address biodiversity and ecological sustainability.
Mrs Steven does not think so.
"We have to invest in the landscape and I don't think we are doing that yet," she said.
Mrs Steven also hopes the council must continue the job it has not finished - defining landscape boundaries.
This includes sensitive river margins and views, which have become second cousin to lake margins and views.
"I am certainly not saying no development. I am just saying be careful," she said.
When it comes to the nitty gritty, one of Mrs Steven's suggestions is to think about "trees in the right places", and particularly wilding trees.
"The council has to grapple with source trees. You can't expect farmers and everyone else to grapple with wildings without the council also removing the source trees," she said.
That might also mean 20-year-old shelter belts will have to come down.
"It will cost money and could mean waiting some 30 years for more acceptable vegetation to established.
But if tackled bravely now - especially under a interagency scheme - it is not in the completely too hard basket, she says.
