Million-dollar homes are few and far between in Oamaru, but that could change with the development of Forrester Heights.
The man who originally pushed the plan, former Waitaki mayor Alan McLay, now an Oamaru real estate agent and Venture Waitaki board member, said the 22-section subdivision would "absolutely'' allow for $1million homes to be built in town.
"It's my hope, I must say, that at least half of those sections will go to our own retiring farmers wanting to come to town, wanting to have something good to show for their sale of the farm,'' he said.
"I believe the timing is right.''
But there would be interest in the high-end sections from elsewhere and the plan when he first championed it had always been to open Oamaru to a different market.
"One of the things that people said to me way back then was there was nowhere in Oamaru to build a high-cost house,'' he said.
"My inclination was to jump on my high horse and say ‘What about this?' or ‘What about that?' And they said ‘Yes, but what stops someone from building a $150,000 house beside us and devaluing the $1million we just spent?'''
Mr McLay said the amount of time it took to change the title on the land had effectively stopped Forrester Heights before any public opposition to the development started.
It took eight years before the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill made it through Parliament.
"It just went on and on and on,'' Mr McLay said.
"It's a disused piece of ground that isn't pretty. We could be collecting a lot of high-end rates off there, which is a great boon to all ratepayers - and we're not asking ratepayers to subsidise this.''
Mr McLay said a flawed understanding of what would happen to the rest of Cape Wanbrow buoyed community opposition at the time.
He expected much less confusion about or opposition to the project this time around.
