Control over urban design in Queenstown’s resort zones was highlighted as a point of contention when proposed district plan (PDP) hearings resumed in the resort yesterday.
The hearings cover the district’s three resort zones of Jack’s Point, Millbrook Resort and Waterfall Park.
Yesterday’s hearing was taken up by the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s opening legal submissions and the presentation of evidence by its consultants.
Lawyer Sarah Scott, representing the council, said urban design was one of several sticking points remaining between the council and submitters on the Jack’s Point zone.
Under the existing district plan, council approval was required for design guidelines, while in the PDP, dwellings within home sites would be permitted.
Ms Scott said council planning consultant Vicki Jones had recommended reinstating controlled activity status for dwellings within home sites, buildings within the village, and recreational buildings in the Open Space Landscape and Open Space Golf activity areas.
The home site areas were "too sensitive and the risks too great to rely wholly on covenants to ensure appropriate design and landscape treatment".
Controlled activity status allowed the council to "maintain some control over key design elements in an efficient and transparent way that is easily comprehensible to plan users".
Urban design was also a matter under dispute in the Millbrook Resort zone chapter, with two submitters arguing some specific design standards be included in the zone’s chapter rather than in design guidelines.
The resort zone hearings are being chaired by Denis Nugent, sitting with commissioners Bob Nixon and Calum MacLeod. They continue in Queenstown until Friday.
The hearings on the first stage of the review of the district plan began last March and are scheduled to continue until May.
The district plan is a document that lays out the framework for council planning for the next decade.
