Ladies Mile carve up - 122 submissions received

The window for the public to have its say on a plan change that would rezone green paddocks along Ladies Mile closed on Friday, with 122 submitting on the proposal.

However, we'll have to wait a little longer for a read of the room, as the individual submissions have not been made public yet.

Queenstown Lakes District Council planning and policy manager Alyson Hutton says the 122 submissions were received from a mix of landowners and members of the public.

"Ladies Mile is a strategic area for projected future growth within the Whakatipu basin, and it’s good to see that our community has engaged in this process."

Once the council has collated and reviewed the submissions, the next stage in the process is for the council to notify the summary of decisions requested by July 20.

"Individual submissions will also be publicly available by this date. Further submissions will then be required to be made within ten working days."

A council-led master plan was adopted in June last year as a way of "ensuring a holistic approach to planing for this growing area of the Whakatipu Basin", the council says.

The district plan rewrite is needed to implement this master plan.

Minister for the Environment David Parker provided a procedural fast-forward at the end of March for the proposed development, allowing the council to use the Streamlined Planning Process to consider the required rezoning of the Ladies Mile land from rural to urban.

If successful, the district plan tweak will rezone more than 120 hectares of existing rural, rural lifestyle, and large lot residential land to allow for smaller lot sizes with more homes of more types.

Mapped out in the master plan are approximately 2,400 new residential units, with very few of them stand-alone dwellings, packed in amongst plenty of native planting, walking and biking paths dotted with play areas for children, neighbourhood cafes, and links to town that don't just rely on private car transport.

Just last week, Crux reported more than 1,200 locals submitted feedback on a proposal to seal the lakeside Frankton cycling and walking track - close to 10 times the number that chose to have a say on the Ladies Mile carve up.

In 2021, more than 500 submissions were received on the original draft of the Ladies Mile master plan. Then, the feedback indicated that 86 percent of respondents did not support or had concerns about the proposed design for development and planning rules

Main image: Ladies Mile paddocks may soon be zoned for 2,400 homes.