The council recently chose 29 priority landscapes in the Wakatipu and Upper Clutha to be included in a landscape values study ahead of a hearing to vary "chapter 21 rural zone" of the proposed district plan.
However, the society says in a strongly worded submission to the plan change that the process should be renotified because the council has not studied development capacity of all rural character landscapes.
The council had received about 200 submissions when the submissions period closed last week.
UCES president Julian Haworth said yesterday the council’s process had prejudiced the community because rural landscapes would be less protected from inappropriate development.
"If they are not done, we don’t know what development they can absorb. Without these studies, it becomes ad hoc development. An applicant can say, ‘there’s no landscape values, so it fits in’," Mr Haworth said.
The UCES submission alleges, among other things, that the council acted in "bad faith" because it had agreed in May 2020 to do all the landscape assessments to avoid a High Court appeal against Environment Court district plan decisions. That convinced the UCES to withdraw the appeal.
When the council notified the 29 priority areas in June, council planning and development general manager Tony Avery said there were not enough landscape architects available to do all the values-identified framework (VIF) assessments and the Environment Court had set a deadline to identify priority landscapes, "with the remaining work to be completed as soon as possible".
Mr Avery confirmed this week "it remains very difficult" to find landscape architects.
Each submission would be considered by the independent hearing panel, he said.
Asked if the variation should be renotified, he replied: "It has already been publicly notified and people have fully engaged with the process as illustrated by the number of submissions."
Mr Haworth said yesterday there were just four lower-profile VIF landscapes to study, which he believed the council could have and should have done in two weeks for about $10,000.
Mr Avery did not share Mr Haworth’s opinion.
"No; the assessment needs to be properly undertaken and carefully considered. Council has begun to arrange this. It is dependent on the availability of suitably qualified landscape architects and hence we aren’t able to confirm timescales and a specific budget at this stage."
The community could trust the council to complete the other studies, he said.
"This has already been conveyed to the UCES and previously reported in the ODT."
Landscape architect Di Lucas has assessed the priority Upper Clutha landscape values on behalf of the society.
But Ms Lucas said she had done no more than a "very preliminary capacity consideration" of the VIF landscape assessments the council had not yet studied because she understood the council had committed to do that.
