Hotel step closer to development
A multi-million dollar hotel that may help ease an accommodation shortfall in Tekapo is a step closer to gaining resource consent.
The two-stage hotel development in Greig St received ‘‘affected persons approval’’ from the Mackenzie District Council at its meeting on Tuesday.
The Grand Properties 2011 Limited development received resource consent for the project’s first stage in August last year.
The latest approval progresses the application for the second stage of the development.
That stage will include a reception building, nine visitor accommodation units, a manager’s unit and a lobby.
It requires resource consent for the design and appearance, building height, recession plane and boundary setback of the building.
In a report to councillors, council planning manager Karina Morrow said council officers concluded there would be minor adverse effects on the adjoining land to the west of the subject site of the councils legal road corridor containing the Tekapo walkway.
As such, the council was considered to be an affected person, she said.
If the council provided written approval, any effects on the council would be disregarded, she said.
If council did not provide written approval, the application would need to proceed on a limited notified basis, as council was the only party permitted to submit on the application, Morrow said.
Previously, Morrow said the maximum height limit for a building in the resident two zone in Lake Tekapo was 8 metres.
The planned hotel breached this height limit by 1.2 metres at the reception area of the building.
Grand Properties 2011 Limited director Andrew Hocken said the hotel would help allevi- ate the pressure of an accommodation shortfall, a consequence of growing tourism pressures in the region.
The cost of the build would ’’’be in the millions’’, he said.
Hocken was hopeful resource consent for the second stage of the development would be granted.
The company was awaiting building consent approval for the first stage of the project.
He hoped building would begin early next year once that was approved.
He said the group wanted to create a building that ‘‘the community could be proud off’’.
Last month, the Tekapo Community Board had concerns about the proposed building’s height limit breaches.
It voted to recommend the council withhold its the affected person approval for stage two, community board chairwoman Stella Sweney said.
‘‘The board felt it might set a precedent and felt it needed to be consistent,’’ - but the board welcomed more accommodation in Lake Tekapo, Sweney said.