Sir Robert Stewart, the founder and chairman of SKOPE Industries, earlier this year applied for resource consent to construct an apartment complex at Arthurs Point, comprising 49 residential units, in what would be the Wakatipu’s first build-to-rent proposal.
It would give effect to a new medium and high-density zoning, which came out in 2021.
However, during yesterday’s long-term plan submissions hearings in Queenstown, planner Blair Devlin — submitting on behalf of Sir Robert — said they had encountered a "significant barrier".
"The 49 units would make a meaningful contribution to housing supply in Queenstown, however, we’ve hit a major issue with the ability to dispose of wastewater."
The solution, Mr Devlin said, was a 1.2km pipeline upgrade — a "substantial project" — for which there was no funding in the long-term plan.
"We’re just concerned that Arthurs Point has been rezoned to medium-to-high density residential, but it seems there is not capacity in the wastewater system to handle the rezoning.
"[Sir Robert] has gone to considerable expense to prepare this consent application, and we have hit this significant barrier, and we did want to bring it to the council’s attention."
When asked by Councillor Quentin Smith if the council should only be rezoning land when it could practically supply the infrastructure to it, Mr Devlin said he believed planning and zoning should come first, "but I guess we were surprised".
Jenny Carter, on behalf of Mee Holdings and Peninsula Hill Ltd also flagged a similar issue.
The developer had recently completed the first two stages of a seven-stage development, on 142ha of land at Kelvin Heights, with resource consents in train for the remaining stages, to provide another 64 residential lots.
Through the process, they had discovered a need to upgrade the councils’ water supply network, to cost about $3.55 million.
The long-term plan stated the council would partner with others, including developers, which they supported, their submission said.
"Developer Agreements are a means of achieving investment in the infrastructure required to enable the development of zoned land.
"While it is acknowledged that the Kelvin Heights land provides a lower capacity than ... the likes of the southern corridor, there is 140ha of undeveloped zoned land.
"If we assumed a capacity of 15 dwellings per hectare, that provides up to 2100 additional homes", their written submission said.
