Unnecessary restrictions on development outside Queenstown Lakes District's town centres will force high-density, high-rise development in urban areas, a plan change hearing was told yesterday.
A hearing into Plan Change 30 - Urban Boundary Framework, by a panel of commissioners Lyal Cocks, Mike Garland and Gillian Macleod, continued in Queenstown yesterday. Plan change 30 proposes a framework for setting urban boundaries around the district's townships meeting demand for 20 years.
Queenstown resident Ervin Steck said it was a "push for high-density upwards" development within town centres. It was unnecessary, bad planning practice, cautious, limited and restrictive, he said.
"Council needs to stand back and look at the bigger picture ... This plan change is trying to restrict development rather than manage it. Council is being the brakes when it should be the steering wheel," he said.
Remarkables Park Ltd's lawyer, John Young, said a "fundamental flaw" was that it did not clearly identify the location of the different urban boundaries.
Solicitor Jan Caunter made a submission on behalf of Wanaka Landfill Ltd and Maungatua Contracting (Wanaka) Ltd.
She said the companies were concerned about the lack of provision for the protection of industrial activities from increasing residential subdivision. The plan change should take account of all activities, not just residential activities, she said.
The companies' site on Ballantyne Rd was facing increasing pressure from ad hoc residential development. They wanted changes to the plan change to protect their activities from "reverse sensitivity effects".
"Any consideration of the control of residential growth throughout the district should properly take the conflict for adjacent or close land uses into account," she said.
Albert Town resident Denis Nugent said the plan change needed to prohibit urban areas of high landscape and ecological value from being developed and warned against new land being included within urban boundaries in an ad hoc way.
Solicitor Ian Gordon, on behalf of Millbrook Country Club Ltd, Mt Soho Trust and six other Arrowtown residents, questioned the veracity of demand and supply figures used to justify the urban boundaries.
He said a more pragmatic approach was needed because of questionable statistics the council was using. His clients were also concerned about the applying a "one size fits all" policy to different settlements.
"You can't compare Makarora and Arrowtown," he said.
A total of 120 submissions were received, of which only 23 supported or partly supported the proposal. A council planner's report says the plan change is a proactive way of responding to significant growth pressures and achieving sustainable urban growth. It would also reduce sprawling urban growth around the edge of townships.
The hearing continues on Monday.
