Appeal withdrawn at Qtown’s Hanley Farm
More than 2000 homes are a step closer at Hanley’s Farm after an Environmental Appeal was withdrawn.
Neighbouring land owners Scope Resources Ltd, operated and owned by Phil Dunstan and Grant Hensman, withdrew the appeal at the end of last week.
Hensman didn’t want to comment and said the details of the agreement were confidential between the company and Hanley’s Farm.
The first release of 100 sections in Hanley’s Farm was sold out within a few hours earlier this month with more sections released this year.
Chief executive David Wightman said the first 100 sections did not fall under the appeals as they were being developed under the Jack’s Point approved zone.
One of the buyers who scored a ‘red dot special’ were first time home buyers Neil Stuart and Jodie Marinkovich.
The couple bought a 400 square metre section for $210,000 and were ‘‘stoked’’ they would be moving out of their 40sq m unit within three years.
‘‘For us on our income it would be impossible to buy a house with a 20 per cent deposit ... even with a 10 per cent deposit we really struggle,’’ Stuart said.
For ten months the couple have been actively looking for a house in Queenstown and said the process was exhausting.
‘‘We were on all of the waiting lists and releases but kept missing out.
‘‘We would write out emails before the releases would even come out.’’
The couple was hoping to get a section in Shotover Country which sold out within a few minutes of the release.
Marinkovich said they were ‘‘quite desperate’’ and looked outside of Queenstown - in Wanaka, Cromwell and Hawea.
‘‘Although Cromwell was affordable and they did have some land options we didn’t move to Queenstown to move to Cromwell,’’ Marinkovich said.
House prices are similar to Auckland’s but at least there were more chances of buying land in Queenstown, she said.
‘‘It’s hard to do it here but it’s impossible to do in Auckland,’’ Stuart said.
‘‘We were both keen to move somewhere to spend some time outdoors build a house and have a family and Auckland wasn’t really us,’’ Marinkovich said.
Kiwi Saver wasn’t much help for the couple either.
It takes ten days to get the deposit out from the account while Queenstown contractors need it within three days.
However, the couple could use their savings for the settlement in two years and said they were relying on it to build a house.
‘‘It’s actually a bit of a silver lining really,’’ Marinkovich said.
The one day sellout of the sections improved Cayman Islands-based Pyne Gould Corporation’s annual result.
The former Canterbury-based rural services company lost $12,620 (£7000) for the year ending June 2016 compared with last year’s £22million loss (about NZ$39m).
The company’s main investment is Torchlight Fund
Torchlight’s two main investments are Lantern Hotel Group and a larger stake in RCL, which is selling the Queenstown sections.
Further development of the Queenstown sections is the main focus of RCL.