Jeremy Bell Investments Ltd owns the 14ha strip of land - part of Criffel Station - opposite the airport, along State Highway 6 and into Mt Barker Rd.
The appeal relates to the company's bid, at a district plan review hearing last year, to change the zoning from rural to a modified version of the Wanaka Airport mixed use zone.
That would have allowed the land to be used for rental vehicles, freight and logistics, storage, airline catering, tourist services, and visitor accommodation. Commissioners Trevor Robinson, Jenny Hudson and Calum MacLeod rejected the proposed zone change in their decision, issued last month.
The commissioners said changing the zone would be ``contrary to the strategic direction'' of the district plan and would create ``a significant risk of adverse effects'' on the Wanaka town centre and on the commercially zoned part of the Three Parks subdivision.
The change was also opposed by the Queenstown Airport Corporation, which leases the airport from the council.
It submitted the rezoning ``may potentially'' result in adverse effects on the airport.
Mr Bell's appeal to the Environment Court claims the council was wrong on several counts, in particular that there was low demand for airport-related activities in regard to the Wanaka Airport and that the rezoning would ``undermine'' the role of Wanaka and the Three Parks centre.
The company argues the commissioners' decision did not take into account the expected growth of Wanaka Airport, and that the range and scale of activities possible under the zone change would not have adverse effects.
It considered the council overlooked the fact the land was already used for commercial activities - a golf driving range and rifle range - and the decision also ``wrongly limits'' airport activities to the Wanaka Airport side of SH6.
In coming to their decision, the commissioners recalled a 2013 Environment Court decision rejecting a proposed amusement park also on SH6 opposite Wanaka Airport.
The commissioners considered that decision ``established a high hurdle for any commercial activity to overcome, not only in terms of landscape character and amenity effects from development on individual sites, but also potential cumulative effects arising over time from development clustered around the Mt Barker Rd intersection and stretching along both sides of the highway.''
