Crux accepts Lakeview invitation from Australian developers

Analysis/Opinion

For the first time in eight years the Australian developers of the controversial $2 billion luxury Lakeview development reached out to Crux yesterday (January 22) and invited us to their sod turning or commencement ceremony on February 12.

The invitation is more than symbolic and signals something of a change in the way Lakeview communications are handled by the Australians.

QLDC on the other hand could not have made a bigger mess of the sod-turning announcement yesterday with a flowery, ad-like promotion published by the council-funded Mountain Scene - with the council comms team then denying they had anything to do with the announcement leak - in spite of their own project manager, Paul Speedy, being directly quoted in the story.

The call and invitation from 94 Feet highlighted that the problem with Lakeview lies not in Melbourne at the head office of 94 Feet - but here in Queenstown with the QLDC.

The Australians are just doing what they do - ruthlessly and efficiently. It was the job of our council and elected representatives to get a good deal for ratepayers. Instead through a mix of arrogance, greed, ignorance and sheer naïvety our council flushed around $100 million down the toilet … instead of actually making money from the land that is worth around $80 million in 2025 dollars. Some estimates, allowing for the diminishing value of money over 20 years, put the ratepayers loss at up to $150 million.

Of course there is a more sinister possibility - that business interests linked to the council wanted to make a lot of money out of unnecessary or over-specified “ground preparation” that was originally budgeted at $19 million. The truth will come out in the end - it always does.

Even if the council was influenced by people who made money out of the site preparation, it does not explain why CEO Mike Theelen (with sole delegation on the entire Lakeview project) gave the Australians 20 years to pay for the land, based on an out of date 2017 land valuation of $42 million and and agreed to pay 100% of the site preparation costs.

In many ways the Aussies deserve their financial and negotiation victory - it’s what they do.

But QLDC ratepayers do not deserve the total failure of our council throughout the entire process. Mayor John Glover has the unenviable task to sorting this mess out - or at least finding out what caused it. So far the senior staff still appear to have the upper hand but as Mayor Glover said in his response to our survey yesterday - this cant happen overnight.

But the clock is ticking.

Read our 10 part Lakeview investigation here - NZ’s biggest council failure.