Based on the outcome of the hearing, the Arrowtown Trust will decide if it will lodge a separate resource consent application to move the adjacent 138-year-old former Millers Flat church, used as a hall since 1959, to a site behind Adams Cottage, in Buckingham St.
Commissioners Christine Kelly and Andrew Henderson will conduct the hearing in the Crowne Plaza hotel, in Queenstown.
Public submissions were overwhelmingly in support of the Otago Foundation Trust Board's proposal to build a new hall at the rear of St John's Church.
The board applied to convert the vestry from a hall to a parish office, start restoration and landscaping work and adopt one of two parking options.
Forty-three submissions were received by Lakes Environmental by the closing date in April, with two opposed and two in partial support.
Concerns were raised about the proposed landscaping, car-parking provisions and the possible impact more tree-planting on the Memorial Reserve could have in affecting the skyline view of the Soldiers' Memorial.
Other submitters said the application should be approved on the condition a resource consent for the proposed relocation of the former Millers Flat church hall was in place first.
However, chairman David Clarke said the Arrowtown Trust did not want to incur the expense of a consent application for the relocation until the upshot of the Otago Foundation Trust Board's hearing was known.
"If they get consent for the church development, we'll quickly apply to shift the [former] Millers Flat church [to] behind Adams Cottage."
The detached porch behind St John's Church would be restored and reattached to Millers Flat church at its new location.
