A developer who has received resource consent for a large central Queenstown apartment complex says opposition from neighbours has significantly delayed the project.
Rob Neil’s Safari Group last week got the nod for a five-level apartment comprising 22 units and six elevated townhouses on the corner of Hallenstein and York Sts.
Neighbours had submitted the townhouses, in particular, infringed that area’s low-density zoning.
Neil says he’s ‘‘very, very happy with the consent we got because it’s got next to no special conditions’’.
However, he adds, he’s ‘‘frustrated with the path we had to take to get it’’.
‘‘I have no time for the neighbours for the way they treated us.
‘‘We had to make some massive changes to try and placate them … and they still wanted to have a crack at us.
‘‘At the end of the day, they’ve slowed the whole project down by probably … nine months.
‘‘That may in fact slow the project down longer, now, because we’ve now missed a window, not just from a construction cost point of view, but also my resourcing [of builders] — I’ve got my resourcing now tied up elsewhere.’’
As for neighbours’ concerns over part of the complex not adhering to its low-density zoning, Neil says ‘‘it has no relevance because a resource consent process allows you to make change to the rules’’.
‘‘We never breached the rules which were going to affect them.
‘‘And, guess what, there’s a plan change going through at the moment which is being presented to the community which is to take that area there back into high-density, which that area should be anyway.’’
One of the neighbours, John Knowles, who had earlier taken High Court action to confirm part of the site’s low-density zoning, says ‘‘we’re not opposed to development there, per se’’.
He and other neighbours had just wanted those rules, as it applied to that low-density zoning, adhered to.
With last week’s decision, those rules appeared to have been bent, if not broken, he says.
Another neighbour, Karen Buchanan, adds: ‘‘I know [Knowles] and one of his closer neighbours fought through the court to have it noted as low-density residential zone, which seems to have been completely ignored.’’
