After 17 long years, a large development in the Cardrona Valley marked a "major milestone" on Saturday at a ceremony celebrating the arrival of its first residents.
Dozens journeyed to the Mt Cardrona Station subdivision to witness an official ribbon-cutting ceremony by Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Glyn Lewers, including current and future residents, development staff and community representatives.
Mt Cardrona Station director Chris Morton said the occasion was an opportunity for those invested in the project to acknowledge the significance of completing the first two homes on the 400-hectare site.
"Today we’re celebrating a major milestone in the project — the first two houses have been occupied for the last couple of weeks.
"People don’t really get excited about subdivisions, they get excited about houses — and so when you walk around the subdivision you can see a house and perhaps go into it. That’s a really big milestone."
Set on a plateau positioned above the Cardrona Valley township and below the Cardrona Alpine Resort, the alpine village was expected to eventually have 350 houses and 150 apartments and townhouses, Mr Morton said.
While sales had slowed this year, this was due to an overall slower economy and he was "pretty confident" more people would be making an approach over the next six to nine months.
To date the development had attracted buyers from locations such as Wānaka, Queenstown and "probably 10% or 15% out of Australia".
Work on the station’s infrastructure was now complete, including water and wastewater treatment plants completed jointly by the developer and the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC).
In a speech before the ribbon cutting ceremony, Mr Lewers praised an "amazing project" that had been borne out of "healthy tension between development and QLDC".
"Look, I’ll be quite honest with you, it was tough at times but we got through it.
"What you see today is world-class infrastructure delivering on public health benefits and potable water, and better environmental outcomes dealing with our wastewater properly and more efficiently.
"So that is a win-win for both the community and the developers here."
Mr Lewers also acknowledged RealNZ for connecting its wastewater systems to the new public facility and the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust for working to establish what would eventually be eight affordable homes on the site.
