The Queenstown Lakes District Council's plan to rezone 46.8ha of land north of the Three Parks development in Wanaka for further development is at the public submissions stage.
At present the land is zoned rural-general and the council lodged the submission for a plan change to the Three Parks Special Zone so it could address urban design, transportation, water and other matters.
Plan Change 4 - North Three Parks was discussed at last Tuesday's strategy meeting and after the meeting, senior policy analyst Sue Mavor said the landowner could have applied for resource consent to develop but the council thought it was better to do so through a plan change.
A plan change would be a more "comprehensive" means to ensure development happened in a certain way.
Mrs Mavor said the proposed development was "mainly residential and a little bit of business". Some business was "already happening".
The main landowner, Ballantyne Investments Ltd, had supported and funded the change since it was initated in February 2010 and would continue to own the land.
"So the decision when and where to develop would be theirs - they might want to wait until they retire or might want to do it immediately," Mrs Mavor said.
The council heard other landowners supported the change.
Public submissions would close on May 4, and council would then release a summary of the submissions before the final hearing, with the public getting another chance to make submissions.
