Kaye Eden lived on the Branches Station — a high-country farm in the Shotover River headwaters — after moving there as a child in 1968, but since 1999 has lived on lower, but still backwater land, near Morven Ferry Rd and the Kawarau River, where she grazes horses.
Her land is beside the 212ha Doonholme Farm, previously a deer farm but now earmarked for a massive housing estate, renamed Ridgeburn.
The developer, applying through fast track, hopes it will have 1250 houses.
Ms Eden said the changes Queenstown had already experienced were ‘‘huge’’.
‘‘You can’t stop change, but we have to make sure it is good change — and it is certainly not putting in something as big as Arrowtown.’’
Ms Eden, who also rents paddocks on her land to other horse owners, described the area as the ‘‘horse hub of the Wakatipu.’’
She loved looking down from her house, on the brow of a hill, and seeing young horse riders ‘‘having fun and being off their phones’’.
She dreaded what she might soon see if she looks in the other direction.
‘‘I hope it [the estate] does not go ahead ... the next five years would be awful. It would be ‘beep beep beep’ from trucks and, with the prevailing winds, we will get all the dust.’’
She had been ‘‘good friends’’ with the former owner of Doonholme Farm, deer farmer Alan Hamilton who died aged 91 in 2022. He had wanted to keep the land rural and it was ‘‘quite sad’’ that this was being threatened.
It was for the good of the community, including the equestrian community — which relied on paddock availability — that the area stayed rural, she said.
‘‘People want to see the mountains, the lake — and the horses. When you ride your horses along the trail people are so thrilled.’’
She remembered when land in the Wakatipu area was largely farmed and stressed the importance of local farms to feed local people.
‘‘You seem to be able to put a house anywhere and we are losing these big farms. We should have green miles and be self-sufficient. We will never get land back once things are chopped up.’’
The planned estate, which has yet to be considered by a fast-track panel, has caused the rise of a new organisation, the Queenstown Smart Growth Initiative, which is objecting and has a growing list of supporters, including Ms Eden and one of her horse paddock tenants, Merrin Brewster.
Ms Brewster said it seemed fast track was overriding rural zoning and people’s need for nature.
‘‘There are so many families who love the outdoor experience ... It seems to me that the local community is out of the picture and the government is dictating.’’
A statement from Queenstown Lakes District Council stressed the district was a ‘‘key tourism destination’’ and the challenges posed by the ‘‘scale and pace’’ of fast track, that went beyond the council’s agreed spatial plan.
‘‘The district is already experiencing significant growth, with development across both existing zoned land and areas identified in the spatial plan progressing at a pace that is outstripping the delivery of key supporting infrastructure, particularly transport and water services.
‘‘Within this context, the number, scale and location of fast-track applications represent an additional layer of development pressure. In some cases, proposals introduce higher densities or are located in areas that were not anticipated for this level of development, and where supporting infrastructure planning and funding are not yet in place. This creates challenges in ensuring development is sustainably and efficiently serviced, ’’ the council statement said.
National Party MP Joseph Mooney called for ‘‘dialogue’’ between developers and the community to get ‘‘better outcomes, rather than just an arms race to face off against each other’’.
However, the fast-track rules implemented by his government do not require developers to consult with communities.
The ODT approached the developer behind the Ridgeburn development, but received no response.
