A group of Meadowstone residents strongly opposed to a proposed retirement village in their neighbourhood confronted the Wanaka Community Board yesterday with their objections and asked for the board to support them in fighting the development.
Board chairman Lyal Cocks refused to back the lobbyists, who are calling for as many opposing submissions as possible to be lodged by the public by the close-off date of December 18.
Individual board members could get involved in their private capacity, Mr Cocks said.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Clive Geddes reiterated the board could not give support to the opposers because the development was now going through the Resource Management Act process.
The Stoney Creek Retirement Village is one of three retirement village proposals for Wanaka and has been earmarked for a large block of land on Mt Aspiring Rd, next to the well-known Avenue of Trees.
Residents Paul Molloy, Bruce MacAndrew, Gordon Brander and Keenan Jennings told the board yesterday they were frustrated by the lack of consultation with immediate neighbours, the short time-frame for submissions and the development's breaches of the district plan.
"We regard it as a high density commercial project in a residential area and we are totally opposed to it," Mr Molloy said.
They were also angry that the council-appointed Wanaka Urban Design Panel had worked with the developer, the Radius Group, for a year without public knowledge and had approved the design plans.
Queenstown Lakes chief executive Duncan Field defended the urban design panel's involvement with the project.
The design panel was appointed to help developers come up with good designs, he said.
The panel's input was not part of the Resource Management Act process and even if the panel liked the development, consenting authorities could still reject the proposal.
The panel's involvement had to be confidential so developers were encouraged to work with it, Mr Field said.
Mr Jennings did not accept Mr Field's explanation.
"It seems to me very odd that an urban design panel would be encouraging an out-of-specification construction . . . surely they should be maintaining compliance," Mr Jennings said.
Mr Geddes said it did not matter what the district plan rules said.
The Resource Management Act was enabling legislation, so any applicant could apply for resource consent for a project that broke district plan rules, Mr Geddes said.
"It is very difficult to understand.
We all look at the plan and say there's the rules, why can they apply . . . the role of the consenting authority is to hear all sides and make a decision," Mr Geddes said.
Mr Cocks said if opposers felt they were running out of time to examine the lengthy application document, they could still make a general submission and raise the details with planners and lawyers during the consent hearing.
Raising the development at the public forum, when media were present, was an effective method of raising public awareness, but it would be best for the opposers to present their detailed arguments to the consenting authority, Mr Cocks said.
