Shania Twain can build her Wanaka house

Canadian country music singer Shania Twain has finally been granted consent to build a house on her Wanaka high country property.

The Motatapu Station development is subject to 17 conditions, including the immediate replacement of any dying plant or tree, a water supply for fire-fighting purposes and an agreement to plant the same grasses as those growing on surrounding land.

The consent allows Twain to build a one-level house, two guest cottages, a garage and ancillary structures. 

Twain, also known as Eileen Lange, and her husband, Robert "Mutt" Lange, had applied through their company Soho Properties.

They bought 24,731ha of Crown pastoral leasehold farm land between Wanaka and Arrowtown for about $21.4 million last year. They want to build a diamond-shaped residential complex on top of a ridge on the southern side of a knoll in the Motatapu Valley, about 1.4km from the existing homestead.

She faced staunch opposition from the Upper Clutha Environmental Society, which argued consent should be denied until Motatapu Station underwent a tenure review.

Commissioner Trevor Shiels has rejected that argument saying tenure review is a voluntary process.



- Newstalk ZB