Single party interested in SHA land

THE Queenstown Lakes District Council’s Gorge Road special housing area will be revoked in seven months and, to date, there is only one party looking at any development within it.

The SHA initially encompassed the former 4ha Wakatipu High School site, minus the playing fields on Warren Park, one side of Gorge Rd and all of the land from the Caltex corner town to and including the Gorge Rd Retail Centre, next to Matakauri Park.

It was approved by the government in June 2016 and the next year the council applied to have it include Warren Park and a property on Hallenstein St.

That application was also approved.

While New Ground Capital gained consent for a 143unit worker housing complex on Gorge Rd as an SHA in 2016, it cancelled the $30 million project because figures did not stack up.

It has since gained consent for a similar, but larger, development at Remarkables Park.

Last year the Otago Daily

reported Ngai Tahu Property was negotiating to buy the former Wakatipu High School site, totalling about 4ha of land, from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, with plans to build at least 350 houses, 34% of which would go to the KiwiBuild programme.

It is understood the negotiations have not yet concluded.

The Housing Accord and Special Housing Areas Act was designed to fasttrack the consenting process for developers.

A resource consent application under the Act is subject to limited notification and should consent be granted, it cannot be appealed.

However, resource consent applications need to be lodged before SHA orders are revoked, after which an area ceases to be an SHA. In the case of Gorge Rd, that is September 16.

Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult said, to date, other than Ngai Tahu Property’s signalled interest, no other proposals had been received for any other part of the Gorge Rd SHA.

‘‘I’m still pretty hopeful that we’ll get . . . some form of student or residentstyle accommodation built that will provide a significant amount of accommodation at a reasonable rate for all people who make up the itinerant work force.’’