High-rise hotel gets green light

Taupo¯ is set to get a high-rise hotel after a lengthy legal battle finally cames to an end.

An Environment Court decision on Monday opens the door on taller buildings in the tourist town’s central business district. Previously the limit was three storeys.

Judge D A Kirkpatrick’s judgment granted the consent filed by Cypress Capital Limited for a six-storey hotel, supported by the Taupo¯ District Council and the five remaining parties to the appeal.

The appeal, no longer contested by any of the original objectors, was otherwise dismissed, said the judgment, and there had been no order for costs.

The permission to construct a six-storey hotel (including rooftop bar and pool) brings to an end a process that began in July 2018 with the original application for an eight-storey building at 29 Tuwharetoa Street.

That proposal, featuring three levels of basement car parking, ground floor retail space, six floors of hotel accommodation and a rooftop bar, spa, and pool, was turned down by three hearing commissioners who ruled the height and scale of the building was contrary to the district plan (which as of right allows for three storeys).

A subsequent revised application, the now approved six-storeys, then found council favour during a confidential meeting of the council in September 2019 – the final meeting before last year’s council elections.

That decision was not made public until an Official Information Act request by

in April this year and how it was arrived at has been a bone of contention for some original objectors.

The non-release of material presented to councillors in making that decision was one of a number of issues various objectors put before the Environment Court at the last minute in late May after the two final opposing appeal parties, Paul Henson and Cooper Family Investments, had withdrawn from the appeal.