The Upper Clutha Environmental Society (UCES) has objected to a proposed ski lodge development below the Cardrona skifield access road and above a recently consented alpine village, saying it would have "significant and adverse" visual and amenity effects on natural landscape values.
Submissions close tomorrow for Mount Cardrona Station Ltd's proposal to establish an 875sq m residential building platform and to construct a 392sq m building and ancillary structures within the platform to be used for residential purposes and as a four-bedroom ski lodge for visitors.
Mt Cardrona Station covers 493ha west of the Cardrona township, rising up the lower reaches of the Cardrona skifield. Plan change 18 recently rezoned 131ha of the property, providing for a small alpine village with commercial activities.
That development site was placed on the market late last year but has not yet sold. The proposed ski lodge site is outside the plan change 18 area.
The UCES said it was "somewhat bizarre" Mount Cardrona Station Ltd had applied for the consent when plan change 18 created "a number of large sections in the elevated parts of the [consented] village where a residence/"lodge" of the type proposed in this application could be accommodated".
The society argued the proposed development was in a "remote, highly elevated and sensitive location" and would set a precedent for inappropriate residential complexes that would "significantly detract" from the character of the outstanding landscape in the Cardrona Valley and wider district.
"The cumulative effects of the residential complex and curtilage proposed in this application, in conjunction with the village recently granted consent below the subject-site and other development in the vicinity are significant and adverse.
The application errs, and is misleading, in ignoring cumulative adverse effects," the UCES submission says.
It said the development would cause adverse visual effects from public and private roads and walking tracks and the inevitable "domestic clutter" associated with the proposed residence had not been fully assessed by the applicant.
The proposed development is within the Ski Area Sub Zone, and is therefore excluded from the landscape categorisation.
The UCES said the application attempted to justify the development because it was in the Ski Area Sub Zone, and so applied the permitted baseline associated with the zone.
However, the society believed the proposed building would be predominantly for residential purposes and would have a "tenuous relationship with the skifield if any".
"It is clear that the Ski Field Sub Zone objectives and policies and rules were not written with the intention of permitting residential development in the proposed location.
"The society believes, therefore, this is a clear-cut case where the discretion permitted in the RMA [to ignore the baseline adverse effects of permitted activities when assessing the adverse effects of applications] should be used in order to avoid adverse effects not anticipated in the District Plan as a result of the objectives and policies and rules and somewhat arbitrary boundaries of the Ski Field Sub Zone."
