Stephen Brent, who’s been involved in many major commercial deals over 20 years here, is chair of the newly renamed 45South Community Foundation.
He also had nine years as a trustee, the last two as chair, of Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust.
Earlier, he helped the trust develop its ‘secure home’ programme while serving on the mayoral housing forum.
Brent, 52, also chairs the Whakatipu Junior Golf Club and set up the Whakatipu Adaptive Snowsports Charitable Trust with his wife, Sheena Haywood.
"I’ve been helping this town to thrive for 20 years, and part of the reason why I want to run is I want to try and keep that going and see what I can do to help this place along.
"There are a number of issues facing this town, good and bad, and I want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem."
In terms of issues, he’d like to reduce the number of rental cars contributing to traffic jams, maybe through a congestion charge that’d go back to the community.
He’d like to see what can be done about the number of empty houses and would like to "supercharge" the housing trust to cope with the 1400 families on its wait list.
"It just feels like every time they help someone into a house, two or three more people go on to the wait list."
Council dropped plans to force developers to provide land for the trust — "it’s a shame council didn’t push a bit harder for that inclusionary zoning".
Though living in Lower Shotover, Brent will stand for the Queenstown-Whakatipu ward as he works in the CBD.
And while drums are beating for council to locate new offices in Frankton, "I think the CBD is the jewel in our crown here, so I would be a fan probably of council staying in town, because that supports the CBD".
One of his bugbears is council rezoning land for residential development with no thought given "as to whether that land can actually be serviced by services".
He supports sustainability, biking to work most days and advocating for a ban on take-away coffee cups.
Concerning local councils’ proposed regional deal with the government, "I think the work done to date has been excellent and has great potential for this region".
"We need sustainable growth, a diversified economy and infrastructure that supports all of that."
