Councillor tells developer her “well and truely burnt this bridge”
A prominent developer, well known for Frankton’s former ‘Hendo’s Hole’, is behind plans for a large industrial subdivision behind Queenstown’s landfill — however, he alleges a Wānaka-based councillor’s got in the way.
Dave Henderson’s planning an industrial park, ‘The Yards’, including recycling facilities for construction and demolition waste, on his 50-hectare plot at Victoria Flats, near Gibbston.
He believes the site’s perfect as it’s away from housing, almost invisible from the state highway and urgently needed due to the cost and scarcity of industrial-zoned land.
His company appealed the council’s proposed district plan, which didn’t allow for the development.
Henderson’s since heavily modified his plans, and council staff recommended to council’s planning and strategy committee, which met in July, it go to mediation rather than an Environment Court hearing.
To his astonishment, however, the committee rejected mediation, meaning, by his estimate, council will spend $250,000-plus in the Environment Court defending its position.
He says he found out newly-re-elected Wānaka councillor Quentin Smith had allegedly driven the decision — which, in an interview with Mountain Scene this week, Smith vehemently rejects.
Henderson says he rang him and said, ‘I understand you drove this’.
‘‘And he’s clearly quite proud of that, and he then says, ‘we think [your plan is] a bit big’, and I say, ‘well, OK, then isn’t that something we would mediate?’
‘‘He finally says, ‘OK, well, let’s get together next week’.’’
On August 19, however, Smith texted Henderson: ‘‘Don’t bother calling next week. You have well and truely burnt this bridge. Thanks, Quentin.’’
Henderson says he naturally wanted to know why Smith had sent ‘‘this mad text’’.
‘‘I text him back, he doesn’t respond, I’ve rung him, he won’t take my phone calls.’’
On August 23, he emailed committee members, quoting Smith’s text and stating: ‘‘I have no idea what has provoked what I see as a seriously inappropriate and hostile response.
‘‘Clearly, Quentin has a serious personal issue with me and one that I consider questions his ability to objectively and dispassionately act on the community’s behalf.’’
Henderson says he was also surprised when he contacted another committee member who wasn’t aware his plans included a resource recovery park, which he tells Scene he’s worked on for three years.
The councillor, he says, said no one had told them about it.
Councillor: “It is absolutely not personal”
Responding to Henderson, Smith says he was only one member of the committee that decided against mediation.
‘‘Any suggestion I am somehow solely responsible for that decision or even led that decision is completely inaccurate.’’
Smith says he ‘‘can’t really comment on the detail’’, as it’s still an ‘active’ appeal, ‘‘but there’s a lot of bits and pieces there including things Dave has said to other people about me in the process, which is partly why I made that comment that I did’’.
‘‘I was trying to engage constructively with Dave, and that clearly wasn’t the approach he was taking with the things he was saying to other people, so I ceased engagement with him at that point … because of what I felt was inappropriate and incorrect things said about me.
‘‘He’s deliberately tried to make it between me and him, and it’s not.
‘‘I hold no animosity to Dave Henderson, and it is a planning decision based on the decision of the committee.
‘‘It is absolutely not personal — he’s severely misrepresented that, that is not how I roll.’’
Smith also suggests what Henderson’s saying he’s proposing isn’t exactly the same as what he’s proposed to council.
‘‘He has never put a recycling plant to council as part of his appeal … what he has put to council is large-scale industrial activity of 37 to 50ha, and that is the basis of what was considered by the committee.’’
On ratepayers bearing the cost of the appeal, now mediation’s been rejected, Smith says council has dozens of appeals on district plan matters at any one time.
‘‘There are situations where there’s a middle ground to mediate, and there are other situations where we decide to defend the decision because that’s the right thing to do for the broader district.’’
