Stage one comprises 32 "chapters" providing the overarching framework for the remainder of the proposed plan.
It encompasses residential, rural and commercial zones, designations and maps, which relate to more than 90% of the district's land.
Stage one was notified in August 2016. A total of 845 submissions and 365 further submissions were received and then grouped into hearing streams.
A total of 21 commissioners were used in groups of two or three at 14 hearings in Queenstown, Wanaka and Hawea between March 2016 and September last year.
Last April, concerns over delays in issuing decisions on stage one were raised on behalf of the planning community by lawyers Warwick Goldsmith and Maree Baker-Galloway at a planning and strategy committee meeting.
Under the Resource Management Act, the council was required to notify decisions "no later than two years" after notification. That would have been in August last year.
The committee was told a waiver was possible, but the council had to go through a formal process under the Resource Management Act process for that.
Legal advice was sought and in a report to the committee's September meeting councillors were told that was not the case for stage one.
While there had been amendments to the Act requiring decisions to be notified within two years, that did not apply because stage one was notified before the changes were made.
The changes do apply to stage two of the proposed plan.
A report prepared to tomorrow's council meeting by planning policy manager Ian Bayliss sought for the council to adopt the panel's reports and recommendations as its decisions and notify them.
He said it would be "problematic" for the council to adopt some aspects of the recommendations and seek to amend others because councillors had not considered the "full breadth or submissions" or the "substantial" body of evidence that had informed the recommendations.
"Piecemeal decision-making at this point is likely to be unfair on submitters who have participated in the process in good faith.
"It could create decisions that are incompatible with sound resource management practise and therefore difficult or impossible to defend."
Stage one proposed district plan rules would have legal effect once notified and the appeal period ended.
Where an appeal was lodged on a provision, rules under the district plan would apply "for some time", Mr Bayliss' report said.
Meanwhile, hearings for stage two are expected to begin in early July. They will address submissions transferred from stage one relating to zoning in the Wakatipu Basin, including Arrowtown and Lake Hayes Estate; the location of urban growth boundaries and landscape classification lines; and submissions on the proposed Wakatipu Basin Zone and Wakatipu Basin Lifestyle Precinct and zoning of those proposed areas.
September hearings will cover submissions on visitor accommodation; earthworks; transport; signs; and the open space and recreation zones.
