The station is also getting a replacement communications pole.
Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) has already obtained non-notified Queenstown Lakes District Council resource consent for the project, subject to conditions.
A FENZ spokesman told the Wanaka Sun this week the refurbishment and strengthening would improve facilities available to the brigade and extend the operational life of the building.
"The improvements will address several inadequacies with the building including not having sufficient training room space and improvements to ablutions.
"The building also has an Earthquake Prone Building notice in place that needs to be rectified. There is no plan to replace any of the equipment or vehicles at this time," the Fenz spokesman said.
Over the past five years, the Luggate volunteers have had a steady number of call outs.
They have responded to an average of 81 incidents a year, with about 50% being fires and 18 % motor vehicle accidents.
Luggate Community Association chairman and former chief fire officer Rod Anderson, who led the brigade for 38 years and remains a firefighter, said the upgrade was part and parcel of developments in the growing town near Wanaka Airport.
"We are very fortunate with the way it will happen. We will be shifting everything to a [rented] building at the [former Upper Clutha Transport] yard over the road while they do the renovations," Mr Anderson said.
"Realistically it would take about 12 months. The fire brigade is looking at shifting straight after New Year ... Luggate is busting at the seams. There are heaps of changes happening and a lot of land sales are happening too," Mr Anderson said.
The fire station upgrade approval was made by council senior planner Andrew Woodford under delegated authority.
The new 10m communications pole will be topped with a siren. An aerial will extend 3m above the top of the pole, taking it to 13.5m in height, breaching 7m-height rules in the district plan.
The proposed building alterations would breach the southern recession plane by about 0.6m.
Mr Woodford said council records showed there was no resource consent for the fire station; however, a building consent was issued in 1980 for the current building.
The previous fire station got an approved building permit in 1967.
The existing fire station possibly had existing use rights, but they not could be transferred to the proposed additions/alterations, so a discretionary consent was needed, he said.
However, Mr Woodford decided public submissions were not required.
Neighbours had provided written approval, while an assessment of effects provided by Fenz was "adequate and accurate".
Effects on the surrounding environment would be no more than minor, Mr Woodford said.
