An application for a 70-person camping area at a Central Otago orchard will be considered by the Central Otago District Council hearings panel today.
Kevin Jackson Holdings Ltd has applied for land use consent for travellers' and workers' accommodation on an orchard on the western side of State Highway 6, between Burn Cottage Rd and Shortcut Rd, near Cromwell.
There are already six "chalets'' on the site which are used as staff accommodation in the orchard season and can be used as travellers' accommodation in the off-season. The chalets provide accommodation for 24 people.
The applicant now wishes to add a camping area for tents and camper vans, and a catering and ablutions block.
The site would have eight powered sites and 12 tent sites and would accommodate a maximum of 70 people.
A report from council planning staff says that, rather than apply to change the conditions of their existing consent and end up with two overlapping consents, the applicant has requested the use of the existing accommodation chalets be included within the consent, so the entire accommodation complex falls within one set of conditions.
The camping ground and chalets would be used 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the report said.
The applicant anticipated almost all guests during harvest season would be seasonal workers, and in the off-season there would be a 50/50 mix of general public/tourists, and long-term workers. A check-in office and on-site manager would be at the complex.
Although an area of existing fruit trees would be removed for the camping area, the accommodation facility would remain "extensively surrounded by orchard'' and "not be generally visible'' from outside the site, the report said.
The hearings panel will consider seven other applications at today's meeting, including an application from Simker Ltd for an eight-lot subdivision and eight dwellings that breach minimum area and height standards on Barry Ave, Cromwell; a retrospective land use consent application for Lindis Honey to operate a honey processing plant on Bannockburn Rd; and an application from C Watkins and H Ninkie for a private aircraft landing strip on Pukerangi Dr, Queensberry, within 500m of a dwelling on another property and/or within 500m of a property capable of accommodating a dwelling.
Hearings panel Neil Gillespie said this month's hearings panel agenda was bigger than most but "last month's was a bit light'', and it was more "about timing'' of the applications rather than the number of them.
Council planning and environment executive manager Louise van der Voort said the number of resource consents council was receiving had "increased significantly and does not appear to be letting up''.
"Staff are working really hard processing consents and responding to customer inquiries, but under current resourcing levels are struggling to meet statutory timeframes. We will be advertising for an extra planner to assist with the extra workload, in the near future.''
