QAC unbending on planning process

Queenstown Airport. Photo: ODT files

The Queenstown Airport Corporation is not showing any willingness to change course on the way it is proceeding with planning the respective futures of Queenstown and Wanaka Airports.

Kelvin Peninsula and Frankton residents have called for the future of the airports - both controlled by the corporation - to be considered together.

As it stands, the corporation’s application to vary the Queenstown Lakes district plan to extend Queenstown Airport’s noise boundaries - allowing for more air traffic - is likely to be under consideration before, and independently of, the corporation’s Wanaka Airport master plan, due to be put to the public in September next year.

Both the Frankton Community Association and Kelvin Peninsula Community Association oppose the extension of the noise boundaries, and both have called on the corporation to delay finalising the noise boundary proposal until the master plan for Wanaka Airport, and the "Queenstown 2050 vision" process, have been completed.

The Kelvin Peninsula association said in its submission to the corporation, delaying the final shape of the noise boundary proposal would allow for a "better-balanced, more strategic and holistic approach" to the development of both airports.

It would also allow the Queenstown Lakes District Council and the corporation to "better research" the impacts of "different growth and airport development scenarios".

Asked by the Otago Daily Times this week about the urgency to settle the noise boundary issue, corporation chief executive Colin Keel did not respond directly, but issued a statement outlining the planning process under way and saying: "It’s essential that we take a considered, long-term approach to planning both airports together in order to strike an appropriate balance for all involved."

Former Queenstown Lakes District councillor Cath Gilmour told the ODT yesterday the corporation had in its master plan document that it was following a dual-airport model.

"But you cannot have that if you haven’t actually looked at what might happen at both airports.

"It’s pretty blatantly self-obvious that if they are saying they are taking a dual-airport approach, then they have to look at both airports in a cohesive and co-ordinated way."

She believed there were variety of ways air traffic to the Lakes district could be increased other than by expanding Queenstown Airport but the ideas had not been "investigated thoroughly".

She believed there needed to be "proper community input" into "major strategic decisions for our community, which should be decided by council and community".

mark.price@odt.co.nz