What they said

THE lack of affordable houses in the Lakes district accounts for all the support for the Special Housing Area (SHA) Universal Developments Ltd proposes for Lake Hawea.

Of 64 comments in favour of the SHA, two appeared representative of the majority view.

Clare Rehill: ‘‘My partner and I are a young couple living and working in the area with a baby on the way. Renting in Queenstown is a struggle and super expensive. Ideally we would love to have our own house, but prices are just astronomical and even with us both working, it would take years to form a realistic deposit, as prices are constantly rising.’’

‘‘AS someone who is currently living in Queenstown with a partner in Wanaka we have been keeping an eye out for something that we can buy that fits under the Kiwi build criteria. How long will we wait? Forever it seems. This housing scheme shows light at the end of the tunnel for two people who enjoy their careers but which [doesn’t] afford them the luxury to save enough for a huge deposit on a house that is overpriced by tens of thousands of dollars.’’

The 114 comments opposed to the SHA included these from the Lake Hawea Community Association: ‘‘There is no doubt that both Lake Hawea water supply and wastewater infrastructure are nowhere near adequate for the proposed development.

‘‘Universal Developments makes a number of assertions about how good for the Lake Hawea community the proposed development would be. If this was compelling, we would see some evidence of community support. Such support is absent.

‘‘ . . . [The proposal] should be rejected.’’

Jason Kelly: