NZTA refuses impossible planning condition from QLDC

The NZTA has refused to comply with a resource management planning condition that requires a new Howards Drive roundabout to be somehow connected to another roundabout over three kilometres away.

The new roundabout will replace the junction of Howards Drive and SH6/Ladies Mile but in a QLDC Planning Decision the NZTA was told to make sure that no new construction would be required when an additional road was added to the junction of SH6 and Hawthorne Drive - a junction over 3 kilometres to the west.

In a rather terse response from the NZTA in Wellington the agency's principal planner Helen Dempster pointed out to the QLDC that Hawthorne Drive was not in the Howards Drive roundabout project area, and in any case the condition would not be acceptable.

Not amused. NZTA's letter to the QLDC makes it clear that the resource management condition is impossible and "an error."

Surprisingly the QLDC then forwarded the complete NZTA letter to a large variety of stakeholders without realising the error, or NZTA's rejection of the planning condition.

The exchange of documents happened late last year with no obvious acknowledgement by QLDC of the error since then in the council's E-Docs system.

Problems with the Arterial Road (Stage 1) project in terms of cost and management have attracted widespread community criticism of the QLDC's ability to manage complex roading projects.

A graphic representation of the planned Howards Drive roundabout - which is nowhere near the junction of SH6 and Hawthorne Drive.

The council is being paid an undisclosed management fee by NZTA to control the controversial $250 million BP junction project that is expected to take four years to complete.

A recent report by QLDC staff says that many parts of Queenstown's roading system are nearing their maximum capacity including the Kawarau Bridge that is the sole access from Frankton to the new southern corridor. Ladies Mile has also been identified by QLDC staff as being a crisis point in the near future due to severe congestion.

Main image: The Howards Drive proposed roundabout is over 3 kilometres away from the SH6/Hawthorne Drive junction making a QLDC planning condition impossible to comply with. (Satellite map: Google Earth.)