Issues with the regional council's draft annual plan have been outlined in the Queenstown Lakes District Council's draft submission, written by Mayor Jim Boult.
The ORC's plan for transport, water quality, capital spending and pest control were all addressed in the submission.
QLDC councillors voted to endorse the submission at a full council meeting last week.
Mr Boult said the ORC's plan did not reflect a strategic approach to the district's issues and the proposed investment was inadequate.
A pledge to spend $100,000 researching lake snow in Lakes Hawea, Wanaka and Wakatipu, was not enough.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars had already been spent by the QLDC to manage the lake snow issue and it now faced spending millions more on filtration equipment to counter the issues, he said.
Both councils needed to work together to find a solution and the ORC should use some of its ``considerable reserves'' to help with that.
While the ORC's $600,000 contribution to the district's transport issues was welcome there needed to be an innovative approach which fitted the district's needs.
``We challenge the ORC to join us in showing some leadership in this critical space.''
Concerns were also raised about the plan's growth assumption for the Queenstown Lakes district which assumed there would be no impact on the ORC's level of activity in the next 10 years.
Mr Boult described the assumption as ``worryingly inadequate'' and asked the ORC to undertake a detailed analysis and adopt a programme which was able to meet the needs of the district's predicted level of growth.
Despite the criticism, Mr Boult was confident both councils would find a way to work together.
``I have every confidence that if our councils work in a united and constructive way we will be able to overcome these challenges together,'' Mr Boult said.
Regional council chairman Stephen Woodhead would not comment on the details of the submission as it still had to go through the annual plan process but said he believed there was a good working relationship between the two councils
``With the growth and expansion that's occurring both economically and population-wise in the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago areas, it's certainly not a business-as-usual situation.
``We are aware of that, and look forward to working with those councils as they deal with the challenges that come with significant growth.''
It was unusual but not unheard of for one of the councils in within the ORC's region to make a submission, which they were within their rights to do so.
There were other mechanisms, such as plan changes or regional policy statements where both councils usually brought issues to the attention of each other, Cr Woodhead said.
