David Whitney says Southern Discoveries' proposal to operate the 9m tall, 200-passenger tourist boat Lady of the Sounds would have a "significant adverse effect", blocking views from Queenstown Bay and "dominating" historic steamer TSS Earnslaw.
Yesterday David Skeggs, managing director of Southern Discoveries' parent company - Dunedin-based, family owned Skeggs Group Ltd - said the ruling was "unfavourable."
"We will be digesting the decision over the next few days before deciding what our next move is, therefore we have no further comment to make."
At a hearing in Queenstown last week Mr Whitney heard Southern Discoveries wanted a non-notified variation on a previous consent to replace its 14.5m, 48-passenger Queenstown Princess catamaran with the much larger 26m Lady of the Sounds, which it would move from its Milford Sound charter operation to Lake Wakatipu.
Skeggs Ltd founder Sir Clifford Skeggs told the hearing the company wanted to "open up" Lake Wakatipu's tourism potential with daily boat trips to Mt Nicholas Station offering cycling to the Von Valley and Mavora Lakes.
But in a decision released on Thursday, Mr Whitney ruled Southern Discoveries' revised resource consent application should be publicly notified.
Mooring the Lady of the Sounds at the Lapsley-Butson wharf would partially block "superb views over Queenstown Bay towards Cecil Peak and Walter Peak", Mr Whitney said.
The vessel would affect valued public quayside amenities and negatively affect views from the lakefront steps, Lake Esplanade and for waterfront businesses - particularly those with ground floor and outdoor dining areas.
Citing an earlier report from Dr Marion Read, the chief landscape architect at QLDC's regulatory authority Lake Environmental, Mr Whitney said: "The scale and bulk of the proposed boat is such that it will dominate the TSS Earnslaw ... such diminishment would have a significantly detrimental effect on the Earnslaw's heritage value within the Queenstown Bay."
On Wednesday, before Mr Whitney's ruling, Tony McQuilkin, the general manager of sales at Real Journeys, which operates TSS Earnslaw, would not comment on the specifics of Southern Discoveries' application.
However, he said Real Journeys had "received a whole bunch of assurances that the safe navigation of the Earnslaw" had been guaranteed and the steamboat's special operating exemptions had been "totally accepted" by Southern Discoveries.
