Opponents and legal counsel wrangling over the proposed Roman Catholic Church primary school development in Speargrass Flat valley, near Arrowtown, have a few weeks to cool their heels before a decision is made public.
On the final of three days on Wednesday, the commissioners, David Collins and Leigh Overton, sought a way to appease parties over the most contentious issues of traffic and noise: evidence of surveys and mitigation plans, which sparked a minor row with the opposing legal counsels.
Counsel for 15 of the 30 opponents, Jan Caunter, charged that the church was taking the hearing as opportunity to "prove and prove" its case at the time and expense of her clients, claiming the mitigating requirements should have been presented in a finalised form; while church counsel Russell Ibbotson bristled at the criticism of himself and his client.
But both accepted new evidence could be gathered during the next fortnight, with a right of reply on application for a further two weeks.
This unusual step by the commissioners makes a decision unlikely before mid-March.
The final of 18 submitters on day three, Scott Figenshaw, a senior policy analyst for the Queenstown Lakes District Council and qualified in planning and development, made a personal submission as a neighbour who shares a creek with the school site.
He called for the church to withdraw its application and consider going elsewhere, suggesting sites of a similar or larger size were available, closer to townships such as Arrowtown.
He said the diocese had a site in Arrowtown, which it had chosen to sell, and instead had bought into an "insurmountable problem" buying Speargrass Flat for $2.6 million.
He said the diocese had not conducted an adequate search for an alternate site and now had to make application for a non-complying activity, and needed to address several mitigations.
School neighbour and resident for the past 20 years, and an independent commissioner, David Clarke, said in his submission the school proposal was "totally incongruous" with the rural amenity, which he described as an "idyllic environment of rural residential lifestyle".
Resident and artist Brian Millard, who is one of six artists forming tourist attraction, The Art Trail, within the valley, said building the school would be an "arrogant and callous act of vandalism on a massive scale", and the effects would be "irreversible and irrevocable".
