Beech Cottage Trustees Ltd, of which Mr Dippie is a director, has applied for resource consent to construct a private 478sqm two-level residential home and swimming pool, and move in a historic woolshed, on 35.1ha of land at Waterfall Creek, about 4km from Wanaka. The Upper Clutha Environmental Society is opposing the plan.
The land is located in an area designated as an outstanding natural landscape by the Queenstown Lakes District Council. Developments in outstanding natural landscapes need to pass a higher threshold of compliance before they are granted resource consent.
Mr Dippie said the house had been designed so it would have a minimal impact on the landscape.
Designed by Andrea Bell, of Bell & Co Architects, it would be made out of concrete and weathering steel with a green roof. It would be positioned in a depression on top of a hill.
"The position it’s in means it’s going to be pretty much hidden from any view."
Relocating the historic woolshed from Luggate would add historical significance to the land, he said.
Mr Dippie said he expected a hearing would be held on the resource consent application. His family had owned the land for quite some time.
A landscape report by the Baxter Design Group, submitted as part of the consent, said any impact the building would have on the landscape was minimal. Because the two-level house would be set into the landscape, it would be visible from only a small part of Lake Wanaka, it said. The woolshed would be more visible but its cultural, historical and heritage associations would reinforce the rural character of the landscape.
The Upper Clutha Environmental Society said the proposal had not avoided, remedied or mitigated the adverse affects the buildings would have on the landscape. Society secretary Julian Haworth said existing and consented developments both east and west of Waterfall Creek had already caused the development threshold in the area of outstanding natural landscape to be exceeded.
Views from Ruby Island, Roys Peak and Lake Wanaka, all popular with locals and tourists, would be significantly altered, he said.
He also believed independent commissioners in recent consent hearings had failed to give adequate weight to the cumulative impact developments had on areas of outstanding natural landscape.
Submissions on the resource consent close on January 16.
