100% Pure ‘desecration’
One of the people responsible for the 100% Pure New Zealand tourism campaign says a Queenstown subdivision plan will destroy an outstanding natural landscape.
M&C Saatchi Australia chairman Tom Dery owns a holiday house at Arthurs Point, where the 89-lot subdivision is proposed. The area’s views were unmatched anywhere in the world – which is why they were used in the 100% Pure campaign the advertising agency developed for Tourism NZ, he said.
Saatchi’s former worldwide chairman lamented some of the land being rezoned ‘‘urban’’, which may allow the panorama sweeping over the Shotover River towards Bowen Peak to be ‘‘desecrated’’.
‘‘We would be going from the 100% Pure New Zealand tourism image to 50% Pure New Zealand, 50% suburb. It would destroy the goose that laid the golden egg,’’ Dery said. The situation was worsened by Queenstown Lakes District Council hearing commissioners authorising the rezoning despite the council’s own expert advice, he said.
That advice was that the proposal was not suitable on landscape and traffic grounds, Dery said. ‘‘I find that strange, particularly given the emphasis in the Lakes District Plan on the need to nurture outstanding natural landscapes.’’
Andrew Fairfax, sole director of Gertrude’s Saddlery Ltd, the company behind the proposed housing development, could not be contacted on Thursday.
District council planning policy manager Ian Bayliss said Arthurs Point was entirely surrounded by land considered outstanding natural landscape.
Decisions on submissions to the proposed district plan involved many proposals to rezone land from rural to urban, and change the outstanding natural landscape boundary as a result, he said. The hearing was one of a small number of times in which the panel did not agree with the position recommended by council experts. However, there was no presumption that the panel should prefer evidence from the council over evidence from anyone else, he said.
Residents have formed the Arthurs Point Outstanding Natural Landscape Society in a bid to challenge the rezoning and the development that may follow the change. It has about 25 members, although Dery expected that to grow to about 100 as more people find out about the proposal.
Society treasurer and Arthurs Point resident Matt Semple was concerned rezoning details published on the council’s website were difficult for people other than developers to access and understand.
That would contribute to many people not knowing what was happening, he said.
Semple has started letting as many people as possible know about the proposal. ‘‘There’s going to be a lot of surprise.’’ The society has lodged an Environment Court appeal against the decision.