A Queenstown Lakes District Council spokesman confirmed last week the 1ha council-owned land, immediately west of Lakeview, would be the subject of a public workshop next month.
The workshop would consider ‘‘potential outcomes’’ for the land’s future use, including affordable housing, the spokesman said.
The Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust has long had plans for developing long-term rental accommodation on the site.
In 2018 it commissioned a masterplan showing a 150-apartment development spread across four multi-storey buildings.
Trust chief executive Julie Scott told Allied Media the trust had discussed the site with the council on and off since at least 2012, and remained ‘‘very interested’’ in having it developed for affordable housing.
‘‘We’ve been advocating that for a long time ... it might not be us on our own, it might be us with a partner.
‘‘There’s a number of ways we could do it.’’
There has been ‘‘divided opinion’’ among councillors over those years about what to do with the site.
Ms Scott said she thought there would be community support for the latter ‘‘especially given the current housing situation and our traffic issues’’.
‘‘I think the community would embrace more affordable worker accommodation in town and less people on the roads travelling to and fro.’’
Notable for its 45 ageing cabins — of which 13 are currently occupied under rental agreements with the council — the Lynch Block is named after the family that owned the land when the leases for the first cabins were signed in the 1950s.
When its ownership transferred to the council in the mid-1960s, the council began negotiating agreements with many cabin owners to buy them out.
The remaining privately-owned cabins were on limited leases, which expired in 2015.
Two years later, the council decided to exclude the site from the Lakeview development, agreeing that it be considered for future use as worker accommodation and/or affordable housing.
In 2022, the council spent $370,000 upgrading 13 of the cabins and rented them out to tenants assessed as having the ‘‘highest needs’’.
All other tenants were given 90 days to leave, and the remaining 32 cabins have been empty since — the council told Allied Media last week they were ‘‘uneconomical to repair’’.
Ms Scott said the land was valuable, and the council would have a range of options for what to do with it.
She thought it should come down to the community’s priorities.
‘‘Arguably, community housing or affordable housing is community infrastructure.
‘‘We’re a community-owned organisation, so anything that we own, is owned and held on behalf of the community.’’
