Growing pains are at the core of most of the issues likely to dominate mayoral and councillor election debates in the Queenstown Lakes district over the coming weeks.
As a rising population continues to strain the district’s infrastructure, voters will be looking for candidates with ideas for curing those pains.
The district’s population grew by an average 3.7% a year between 2018 and last year, and is estimated to have exceeded 52,000 in the past two years.
With visitors pushing that number over 120,000 during summer, issues such as traffic congestion, affordable housing, Three Waters and troublesome budget travellers have grabbed headlines over the past three years.
The council has also grappled with a rolling maul of other challenges such as a cryptosporidium outbreak, cost overruns on a Queenstown CBD bypass road and the contentious Ladies Mile master plan.
Although individual opinions have differed, many residents appear to agree the council’s communication on these thorny issues has been lacking over the past three years.
A council-commissioned "community insights" survey released in June found residents wanted better communication, more genuine consultation and greater transparency from their council.
Confusion and anger began simmering last year when treated effluent from the Shotover wastewater treatment plant’s disposal field began spilling into the adjacent river delta.
That turned to outrage in March when residents learned council managers were invoking emergency powers to begin discharging the effluent directly into the Shotover River.
The district’s annual quality of life survey, released in March, showed housing and affordability continue to be big challenges.
Although the percentage of residents worried about having a steady place to live decreased slightly, from 21% in 2023 to 18% last year, the number of eligible households on the community housing trust’s waiting list has risen by nearly 90% in the past three years, to 1480.
Other issues likely to figure in mayoral and ward councillor debates include a long-running proposal to house all council staff under one roof instead of five, and a new freedom camping bylaw.
For property owners, the issue that probably overrides all others is their rates bill.
Rates increases for 2025-26 have exceeded those forecasted in the long-term plan — for median-value residential homes they are 13.2% in Queenstown and 18.7% for Wānaka.
With the district council sitting near its debt ceiling, the hunt for new sources of operational and capital funding goes on.
The council, in partnership with the Central Otago District Council and Otago Regional Council, has been selected to negotiate a 10-year regional deal partnership with the government.
Aimed at clearing some of the roadblocks to meeting the region’s critical needs, some of the ideas up for negotiation are a gondola to link Queenstown’s town centre with Frankton and the airport, and a privately built, publicly operated base hospital somewhere in Frankton.
Congestion charges and a long-sought visitor levy or "bed tax" could also be on the agenda.
