The Cromwell Motorsport Park Trust Ltd, owned by Tony Quinn, trading as the Highlands Motorsport Park, already has land use consent for the 13.91ha ''commercial park'' where the garages will be, within the 87ha motorsport facility.
It has sought resource consent to allow for separate ownership of the 42 industrial allotments within the commercial park, ranging in size from 259sq m to 1215sq m. The Central Otago District hearings panel considered the matter yesterday and reserved its decision.
BTW South resource management planner Richard Black fielded questions on behalf of the applicants. Several related to the upper floor accommodation which could be constructed above the individually-owned garages.
''The intent is purely a holiday home or facility to use during events, a holiday home above where the person is storing their car,'' Mr Black said.
In response to a question from Cr Martin McPherson, he agreed there was nothing to stop any of the owners living in the accommodation fulltime.
Highlands designer Tony Butel said the finish on any buildings on the allotments would be in keeping with the museum building on site and a design review board, made up of Highlands representatives, architects and designers and other related professionals, would be set up to oversee construction of any buildings on site.
Mr Butel believed only about 20% of the allotment owners would want to build accommodation above their garage.
The people who had expressed interest so far in buying the allotments were likely to arrive the day before a race meeting at the park, stay a night or two, and then leave.
They would be based there possibly six times a year, he said. Councillors could be assured any buildings would be finished to a high standard.
''Our owner will not want to see the park devalued by a whole lot of substandard structures on the site,'' Mr Butel said.
Council planning consultant David Whitney said at the time of the park's original resource consent hearing, when the commercial park was discussed, the vision was for a automotive-related industrial area, with privately-owned garages for storage.
There was no suggestion of creating a ''gated'' complex as was being mooted now.
Mr Butel said gating the commercial park would be a security measure '' to reduce temptation, I suppose''.
Some of the high-performance vehicles that would be stored at the park were worth ''an obscene amount of money''.
No retailing was allowed within the commercial park, under the terms of the resource consent for the operation.
Mr Whitney said that was part of an Environment Court decision on the park and was to address concerns about commercial activity in Cromwell being further fragmented if retailing activity was permitted.
