Billionaire appeals luxury lodge ruling
ANOTHER David and Goliath battle looms for the Upper Clutha Environmental Society (UCES), with the revelation yesterday US tech billionaire Peter Thiel will take his battle to build a luxury lodge in Wanaka to the Environment Court .
Environment Court documents reveal Second Star lodged an appeal on September 5 against a decision by a Queenstown Lakes District Council independent hearing panel.
Commissioners Ian Munro, Glyn Lewers and Wendy Baker refused consent for a residence and lodge complex at Damper Bay, Wanaka.
They said the ‘‘very large, very long’’ building did not meet the district plan’s ‘‘reasonably difficult to see’’ criteria for outstanding natural landscape.
The basement floor area was 1165sq m, and the building would stretch for 330m. An owners pod would be 565sq m, and there would also be a back of house building for which incomplete details were lodged.
Society president Julian Haworth lodged a court document yesterday confirming UCES would be a party to the proceedings. The QLDC is the defendant.
Mr Haworth said in the Environment Court document that the society stood by its evidence at the hearing that the development would have adverse visible affects.
It is the third time the society has gone in to bat to protect the Damper Bay site from inappropriate development in the outstanding natural landscape.
In 200304, it negotiated with the owners of Alpha Burn Station to select a single residential building platform on the 193ha farm block.
The property was then sold to a group of businessmen, Craig Heatley and Trevor Farmer, of Auckland, and Mark Taylor, of Queenstown, who proposed building six houses.
The UCES joined forces with the now defunct Wanaka Residents Association and the Environmental Defence Society in 2011 and 2012 to stop that development.
The land was then sold to the current owner, Second Star Ltd, for a reported $13.5 million in 2015. Second Star announced its development plans in 2021.