Call for 80-hectare minimum lot size

Upper Clutha Environment Society spokesman Julian Haworth looks at the area where an application for 13 residential building platforms on Kane Rd, Hawea Flat has been declined. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth

The Upper Clutha Environment Society is calling on the Queenstown Lakes District Council to commission a land use planning study of the Upper Clutha basin to stop developers applying to subdivide rural areas into residential lots.

Society spokesman Julian Haworth said the recently commissioned QLDC Wakatipu Basin land use planning study had advocated a minimum 80ha lot size in parts of the Wakatipu Basin Rural Zone due to development pressure and an 80ha rural lot size should be introduced in the Upper Clutha.

"The council finally came to the realisation that by allowing random piecemeal development they were stuffing up the Wakatipu landscape and we need a similar study to be done in the Upper Clutha if we don't want the same thing happening here."

He said the application by Willowridge Developments Ltd to create 13 residential lots "in the middle of nowhere" must be seen through the prism of the Wakatipu study.

Wanaka developer Alan Dippie, who owns Willowridge Developments, applied to the QLDC for a consent to subdivide 118.76ha of rural-zoned land bounded by Luggate-Tarras Rd (State Highway 8A), McKay and Kane Rds, north of Luggate, into 13 residential lots. The Upper Clutha Environmental Society was the sole objector.

The application was declined by a QLDC hearing on 23 March. Mr Dippie's lawyer, Graeme Todd, has indicated he will go to the Environment Court. A QLDC spokesman said in the interim the council was seeking mediation as "the commissioners' decision indicated some level of development was appropriate (four platforms)", but the UCES has refused to mediate.

Mr Haworth said seven of the houses were on a ridge and would be visible from SH6 and many other public places.

The other houses were beside the road to Hawea and in front of an area with an outstanding natural feature classification, and would have significant adverse effects, he said.

"The society is not anti-development. Alan Dippie has done a lot of good developments close to Wanaka and inside the urban growth boundary but this development does not fit with the district plan.

"We don't need to put residential in rural areas. We have enough rural residential capacity to 2048. This is a case of greed," he said.

Mr Dippie could not be contacted.

Mr Todd said "subdivision of land in the rural zone and applications to build was not prohibited. It was a discretionary activity."