A second Wanaka gravel supplier has been limited to a five-year consent period for its operations in the Cardrona River bed because of increasing tensions between rural and residential activities on the town's outskirts.
The situation should be reviewed in five years and any further consent application dealt with on its merits at that time, independent Queenstown Lakes District commissioners Trevor Shiels and Lou Alfeld said.
Upper Clutha Transport Ltd wanted to extract 20,000cu m of gravel each year for 10 years but has been granted a five-year term by the commissioners in a decision released last week.
In December, Wanaka Landfill Ltd also obtained consent to extract a similar amount of gravel for five years, but had wanted a 15-year term.
In both cases, the companies would be stockpiling and processing gravel on adjacent sites near the Ballantyne Rd bridge but cannot bring in additional material from other extraction sites.
(Wanaka Landfill Ltd has since appealed to the Environment Court and the mediation process has begun. A hearing may not be scheduled for several months.)
The commissioners determined in both cases that the Cardrona River gravel-extraction sites were part of an "outstanding natural feature" which attracted the toughest planning regulations with respect to visual effects.
Conditions were imposed on both gravel extractors so the adverse visual effects would be "no more than moderate".
" . . . [T]he changing character of the neighbourhood means that there is a present, and growing, tension between such activities and the increasing rural-residential character. Having regard to all the circumstances, and in particular that factor, we have decided that a limited life consent for extraction and storage is appropriate," the commissioners said.
