A Central Otago wine-producing family is challenging a decision rejecting their plans for a large house in their vineyard overlooking Lake Dunstan.
Te Kano Estate owners Keith and Rhonda Lloyd applied in 2021 for consent for a building platform on a 20ha site in their Northburn vineyard on the lake’s eastern side.
Through Larksbay New Zealand Trustees Ltd, the family appealed to the Environment Court after a Central Otago District Council hearings panel declined the application last year on the grounds of "unacceptable adverse effects" on the landscape and views.
Proposed design and height controls for a 900sq m house, as well as mounds and additional planting, would ensure the visual effects were low to moderate, Mr Leckie said.
Larksbay’s landscape expert had given evidence that the site, which had high-voltage transmission lines running across it, had more of the attributes of the modified rural landscapes to its north than the outstanding natural landscape (ONL) that it partly straddled.
The council’s landscape expert’s evidence about the proposal’s visual effects was misleading, and did not follow best practice.
Granting consent for the building platform would not result in precedent effects and a "proliferation of ‘like for like’ applications", he said.
Mr Lloyd told the hearing his family bought the land in 2016.
Based in Singapore, he and his wife stayed at their Queenstown home when visiting the region, and wanted to build a home at their vineyard to avoid the commute.
Lawyer for the council, Jayne Macdonald, said the subdivision consent underlying the site did not afford a right to residential development, but only a potential for future dwellings, subject to a separate consenting process.
A subsequent plan change had introduced a greater focus on managing the effects of land use on hillsides and other prominent places in the district, and the proposal had to be assessed "against the planning regime now in place".
The council’s landscape expert had found the proposal would have moderate-to-high adverse effects on landscape values and views, Ms Macdonald said.
It would "draw the eye as an anomalous new element" in the landscape, and a large house would disrupt the "simple and orderly pattern" of viticulture and farming in that portion of the Dunstan Range’s foothills.
Judge Prudence Steven KC said she would reserve the court’s decision after receiving written closing submissions.
