While the Queenstown Lakes District Council and the Government focus on fixing Queenstown’s housing issues, Upper Clutha has not been forgotten about, deputy mayor Calum MacLeod says.
In May the Government and the Queenstown Lakes District Council announced an extension to the Queenstown Lakes Housing Accord.
Wanaka and the Upper Clutha are now included in the housing accord, but as of yet there had been no official announcement on any potential SHAs in the area.
More government help for Queenstown was announced on Monday with the Government announcing a $50million loan to be used to fund new roads and water infrastructure at Ladies Mile and Quail Rise as well as at Kingston.
Mr MacLeod said despite most of attention being focused on the housing situation in Queenstown, Wanaka was not being left behind.
"If you look at the relative success of the SHAs in Queenstown there’s going to be three or four candidates over here off the bat once it kicks off over here."
Large areas of land in Wanaka were marked for development, like the land between Ballantyne Rd and Cardrona Valley Rd, which could be developed using an SHA.
"Obviously there’s a pile of discussions to happen and nothing has been decided but if you look at that area there four or five landowners trying to do something and there’s certainly room for consideration for sure."
Wanaka was better placed than Queenstown once work on affordable housing got under way, he said.
"We already have Lake Hawea, Luggate, Hawea Flat [and] there’s a lot more potential to absorb those same issues they have over there [Queenstown] with land availability and a small pool of land owners."
The fact the Government had given the council a free loan showed the urgency in Queenstown, Mr MacLeod said.
"That’s recognition potentially the council has been behind the eight-ball in Queenstown in the past and that’s where the focus needs to be right now, but it doesn’t mean Wanaka and the rest of the district is being forgotten about."
QLDC senior policy planner Anita Vanstone said there had only been very preliminary discussions with land owners and developers in the Upper Clutha regarding establishing SHAs.
A monitoring report would be released at the end of this month to provide a breakdown of building consents issued and new sections approved for the entire district. The report would identify areas where SHAs could be established.
