Singer's home not in harmony

Shania Twain

Canadian singer Shania Twain's proposed home design for Motatapu Station, near Wanaka, has received the thumbs down because it is not in harmony with the landscape.

Although the nearest public vantage point is 2km away, Queenstown Lakes District Council regulatory authority CivicCorp said the 8m-high building would break the natural line of a terrace and a more suitable location could be found.

Any plantings that would screen the house from sight would detract from the existing visual amenity of an open and natural valley, said consultant planner Andrew Henderson.

Independent commissioner Trevor Shiels is scheduled to hear the application at Edgewater Resort, Wanaka, next week.

Twain, also known as Eileen Lange, and her husband, Robert "Mutt" Lange, have applied through their company Soho Properties to build a house with attached garage, two guest cottages and ancillary structures.

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.

The couple also sought consent to build a smaller worker's house on a terrace about 200m west of the end of Motatapu Valley Rd.

Mr Henderson said Twain's proposed dwelling "is not considered to be in harmony with the line and form of the landscape". Consent should be declined unless further evidence was presented at the hearing, he said.

In a separate report, Mr Henderson said the worker's house did not intrude on the landscape and was on a site that was not readily visible from public and private areas.

- NZPA