On the second day of the hearing in Wanaka into the application by Universal Developments Hawea Ltd to build a 465-lot residential subdivision, including a special housing area, bulk commercial lots, a commercial building and a childcare centre, in Cemetery Rd, commissioners were told resource consent was being sought ‘‘in a generic envelope sense’’ for the service centre land.
Counsel for the applicant Maree Baker-Galloway said her client, developer Lane Hocking, had had to lodge his application before the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas legislation - which enabled the streamlining of new housing developments, and allowed special housing areas to be designated under accords between the Government and council - expired in September last year.
"Because of the short time frame, other than the childcare centre and the commercial building, which is a cafe and a small commercial operation ... it wasn’t possible to provide that additional information, because it wasn’t information the applicant had."
Commissioner Dr Lee Beattie said "it seems to me we are in this generic no man’s or no person’s land of not knowing what we are consenting to".
Commission chairman David Whitney said "the difficulty we’ve got is ... you are seeking land use consent, a specific resource consent, for any of the possible activities that fit under any of those generic headings but we don’t have the information.
"We have a reasonable amount of information about two specific activities, the childcare centre and the commercial building, but we seem to have a paucity of information about all of the possible uses (for the bulk commercial lots)."
Submitting on behalf of Willowridge Developments, counsel Jayne Macdonald recommended consent for the 10 lots comprising the township service centre should be declined.
Willowridge is the developer of Three Parks centre in Wanaka and the subdivision of Timsfield in Hawea but Ms Mcdonald said Willowridge’s evidence and concerns about the centre extended beyond trade competition.
She said the centre would result in an oversupply by some margin of new commercial development.
Independent commissioners Mr Whitney, Dr Beattie and Lisa Mien also heard evidence from Queenstown Lakes District Council staff before the hearing concluded.
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Comments
The Hawea community has been clear, it does not want any commercial activity to move from the current area by the Hawea store. The community does not want several areas developed as is in Wanaka now. But as usual the Council and this developer does not seem to care what the community wants even when the Council initiate the discussions with the community. The message is clear - No More Commercial Development in HAWEA except for the current commercially zoned area.