The Jack’s Point Residents and Owners Association (JPROA) - which owns and operates its community’s trails, parks, roads and water infrastructure - has requested the fast-track panel either decline the application or ask for updated and fuller information.
It is calling on the panel - which it is requesting hold a hearing - to decline Homestead Bay’s wastewater consents and require it to connect to the council’s sewerage system - and it wants its residents to install septic tanks just as Jack’s Point property owners are required to do.
The JPROA also claims the plans by Homestead Bay’s Australian developer, RCL Group - which also developed the Hanley’s Farm subdivision on the other side of Jack’s Point - are inconsistent with the council’s southern corridor structure plan, as it is only proposing low-density housing, including on an area identified for medium-density residential.
Oddly, RCL Homestead Bay Ltd stated its fast-track application would be for about 2800 residential lots, but in its "substantive" application it is only going for 1438 residential units, with reference to later plans for medium-density, high-density and commercial "super-lots".
The JPROA said some of the main economic benefits claimed for the subdivision were only relevant if the fuller development was undertaken.
However, its predominant concern, in its submission filed last week, is over Homestead Bay’s plans for wastewater disposal.
"The substantive application seeks approvals to drain treated wastewater to land over which JPROA has the right to drain wastewater," it said.
There was not enough information or assurance the subdivision would not have an adverse impact on Jack’s Point’s water and wastewater systems, it suggested.
Many of Homestead Bay’s proposed wastewater land treatment areas were on steeply sloping land "that surface-drains into the active overland flow channels which flow into the Jack’s Point pond systems and then discharge into Lake Wakatipu at Homestead Bay", the submission said.
"This presents an unacceptable consequential risk of nutrient and pathogen pollution of down-catchment water bodies, including ultimately Lake Wakatipu."
The submission is also concerned the proposed wastewater treatment plant and many of the land treatment areas are immediately next to Jack’s Point trails.
"These trails are regularly used by families, including young children and pets."
The proximity, clustering and intensity of the wastewater network "create significant amenity and health-perception issues that are incompatible with the recreational purpose of the trail network", it stated.
The JPROA was also concerned about the strain Homestead Bay trails would put on its own trail network, with no commitment "to contribute to the significant cost of maintaining the JPROA trails network".
It also wanted an assurance the proposed roundabout, on to the highway, would be built before the subdivision’s construction started, to prevent building crews using Jack’s Point roads.
Asked to comment, JPROA chairman and Jack’s Point co-developer Mike Coburn said: "I don’t think there’ll be opposition to the actual development. It’ll be how the infrastructure around it is handled".
"Jack’s Point has been disposing waste[water] to ground for 20 years or thereabouts, but on very light footprints, and the challenge therefore for Homestead Bay, if they want to dispose to ground with such a big footprint, there will be issues with absorption of the residue water."
However, plans for 1400-plus sections, rather than 2800, were "far more palatable, I would think".
On Homestead Bay’s plan to connect homes directly to sewer mains, he said without being an expert on it, individual septic tanks were "a better method because a lot of the nasties are removed at the household before going into the system".
He emphasised Jack’s Point residents had bought into an ethos and legacy of protecting the environment, which they had worked hard to achieve.
The expert panel assessing the Homestead Bay fast-track application has to make a decision by February 18.
The Otago Daily Times has been unable to reach RCL Group chief executive David Wightman for comment.
