Debbie Jamieson

New Queenstown Lakes mayor Jim Boult has taken over the helm at a time when Queenstown’s stock is high.

Often described as the jewel in New Zealand’s tourism crown, it has a booming population, the second highest number of visitors in the country behind Auckland and has just become the second town (again behind Auckland) to hit a median house value just over $1 million.

But the growing pains are substantial. Housing is becoming unaffordable for families and the service workers required to meet the growing tourism market. Traffic is gridlocked at key times of the day in central Queenstown and around State Highway 6, through Frankton. The resort is on the verge of running out of hotel beds and Lake Wakatipu, one of the town’s biggest attractions, is threatened by revolting algae no one seems to know much about.

Boult, the former Christchurch Airport boss, is taking this in his stride. His response is measured but urgent.

‘‘There are multiple issues on multiple fronts to deal with so it requires quite a structured approach to figure out what’s most important.

‘‘But then it’s also a matter of factoring in that there’s some really important things, like the price of housing for example, that’s going to be a long term fix. There’s some less important things that have a shorter term fix and are easier so you’ve kind of got to do them both in parallel.’’

He has described the new council under his leadership as the ‘‘can-do-council.’’

It is an approach that has served Boult well through a successful business career.

He bought Shotover Jet in 1986 and steered the company through much of the growth that has seen it become one of New Zealand’s most widely recognised tourism brands.

That lead to awards, directorships and representations on boards including Tourism New Zealand, the Civil Aviation Authority and Hawkins Construction.

In 2009 he became Christchurch Airport chief executive before becoming involved in several businesses including the troubled Christchurch-based Stonewood Homes franchise.

Last year he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to tourism and the community.

Throughout he has maintained his base at his Lake Hayes home on the outskirts of Queenstown where he lives with wife Karen and where children James and Victoria have progressed through the local Wakatipu High School.

He has continued to serve on boards of local companies, including Real Journeys, and given his time to the community as a member of the Shaping Our Future steering group and helped establish Friends of Lake Hayes in 2007 to restore the lake’s water quality.

It is this compassion for his home that motivated him to stand for the mayoralty, he says.

‘‘I took it on because I’ve been here for 35 years and I really like living here and there’s some things happening that I wasn’t happy about. It was the challenge of saying ‘well, can I change things for the better?’’’

So far, he says, he is delighted with the challenge and with the progress he has made. He set himself a list of tasks to action in the first 100 days. After two months he had ticked the lot.

At the top of the list was Queenstown’s widely acknowledged housing affordability crisis.

‘‘There are multiple issues on multiple fronts to deal with so it requires quite a structured approach to figure out what’s most important.’’

He has established a mayoral taskforce, led by new councillor John MacDonald, in an effort to find out why housing is so expensive in Queenstown.

He says a standard 160-170sq m landscaped and fenced section with a new three bedroom house and a single car garage on a 500sq m section in Rolleston would likely cost around $475,000. A similar property at subdivision Shotover Country near Queenstown might cost $875,000.

‘‘There’s probably a $100,000 difference in the land value, so where’s the rest of it? Some of it will be in transport and some will be in wages but that’s still a massive difference.

‘‘I’d like to understand what the drivers are that are causing house prices to be so high here. Then, with that understanding, what do we do about it?’’

Next on the list is transport, a problem every person who comes to Queenstown experiences.

‘‘Flying into the airport the other day, seriously, it took me the fat end of three quarters of an hour to get in here which is just crazy,’’ he says.

Infrastructure is the key and while he was pleased to be able to announce the beginning of construction of Hawthorne Drive – a long awaited bypass road around Frankton, he says it should have happened much earlier.

‘‘One of the things we need to do going forward is ensure that infrastructure is developed before we have growth rather than waiting for the place to get into gridlock before we do anything about it.’’

The other big issue is public transport and he has already met with NZTA and the Otago Regional Council to scope out a process for a revitalised public transport system.

He compares the system in its current form to a ‘‘scungy house’’. It needs to be replaced but in the first instance a new roof will keep things operational.

Planning for the new house is the exciting stuff and he hopes to have a plan in place by the end of next year. He says they are starting with a clean piece of paper and considering anything – light rail, a waterborne system or a different form of bus.

‘‘I want a public transport system that is so good, so frequent and so affordable that it’s just the default method for getting around the district by locals and visitors alike and I will be looking for a contribution from a visitor levy to help pay for that.’’

The Visitor Levy. It was key to Boult’s campaign and a focal point in this year’s election. The difficulty is that no matter how much the Queenstown Lakes District Council, or others buckling under the tourism boom, want it, they cannot, at this stage, impose it. All they can do is lobby central Government and hope for the best.

The council has already made submissions to Government and he is keen to see the Government reaction to a tourism industry report calling for the Government to find $130 million annually via a bed tax and other visitor levies to fund infrastructure.

‘‘It’s unreasonable to think that our 20-odd thousand people that live here should pay for the 4.8 million visitor nights we had last year.

At the same time he is hoping to encourage more hotel development, as Queenstown increasingly finds itself putting out the ‘‘No Vacancy’’ signs.

Also of concern is the algae found in Lake Wanaka and now Lakes Wakatipu and Hawea known as lake snow or lake snot.

‘‘The trouble is I don’t know what’s caused it and I haven’t found anybody who does seem to know what’s caused it.’’

As he works through his lists and nightly clears his emails Boult has two key goals in mind. If he achieves them, he will have completed the job he came to do, he says.

‘‘When I don’t have employers saying they can’t get people to come to town because it’s too expensive to live here. Secondly when I see a fabulous public transport system that is recognised as the best in any resort area in the world.’’