Peter Thiel’s bid to build an 1800sqm+ luxury lodge overlooking Lake Wānaka has been rejected again, this time by the Environment Court.

The Environment Court has denied the US billionaire’s appeal to overturn a 2022 decision by a Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) consenting panel which had turned down the proposal.

Judge Prudence Steven noted that the proposal (by Thiel’s company Second Star Ltd) was “substantially the same” as the one commissioners had considered: a lavish, multi-building retreat in an Outstanding Natural Landscape zoned (ONL) site near Damper Bay.

The judge said the lodge would stretch across the lakefront site for some 190 metres, noting that was “nearly the length of two football fields”.

The US billionaire has been trying to get the lodge (which would be built on his $13.5M lakeside site) approved for at least two years. PHOTO: Supplied

Architects Kengo Kuma and Associates (best known for designing for the Tokyo Olympic stadium) designed the lodge, which the judge said was “attractive and responsive to its setting”.

However, mitigation via planting and design elements would “not serve to significantly mitigate the horizontal effect of 190m and 35m of glazed windows,” she said.

“We… find that the values of the ONL will not be protected.”

Thiel was not the only one to be delivered a blow in the judgement.

The judge said it found QLDC’s position as respondent “troubling”.

“While the council claimed to be a neutral party in the proceedings, the council brought planning and landscape evidence that openly supported the applicant’s case,” the judge said. 

QLDC had changed its position on the proposal since the 2022 decision from opposition to support.

If a council is intending to call evidence in support of an opposite position, its duty is to act with fairness and full transparency, but QLDC hadn’t done that, she said.

“The council took an active and supportive approach of the appellant’s position in court and was hardly neutral.”

Thiel purchased his 193ha property (located off Wānaka-Mt Aspiring Road) in 2015 for $13.5M after controversially gaining New Zealand citizenship.

QLDC was approached for comment.