The plug has been pulled on the Bright Sky residential development, Wanaka’s first special housing area (SHA) approved by the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) and central government in 2019.

Bright Sky Land Limited’s (BSL) chair Grant Bissett advised the Wanaka App yesterday (Wednesday July 29) that council’s desire to put the development out for limited public notification, after months of resource consent proceedings to avoid notification, was the deciding factor to abandon the SHA development.

After providing a thorough SHA application, Grant said BSL had to respond to numerous additional requests for further information, delaying the resource consent process by months without resolution.

“The advice from QLDC that further delays would be experienced due to a requirement of limited notification...was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said.

In a letter to council staff, Grant said that the ongoing “shifting of goal posts” by council staff, including increasing the percentage of land to go to community housing, and meeting new stormwater and green space requests, had made the resource consent process difficult. 

The SHA was sandwiched between the Aspiring Retirement Home and Heritage Park. It is adjacent to the Alpine Estate residential subdivision currently under development and borders the industrial area to the west of Ballantyne Road.

“At significant cost we have continued to rejig and accommodate the changes requested. These changes have eroded the number of lots contemplated in the EOI [the original expression of interest in the SHA application] and therefore the viability of the project,” he said.

Grant said the process had been frustrating and the complete lack of response, “a big, fat silence”, from the council in the five months since BSL advised council it was abandoning the SHA was disappointing. 

“We entered the SHA process in good faith and we’ve spent a fortune trying to achieve that,” he said. “Then we’ve run into a QLDC glacier coming the other way.”

“When we [BSL shareholders] considered our options to develop this land our professional advisors suggested the SHA was the best path as central and local government were concerned there was a housing crisis both nationally and locally.”

All the shareholders are or have been employers, Grant said, and are acutely aware of the difficulties in attracting and retaining staff if they can’t find reasonable cost housing to either rent or own, so the idea of cutting through red tape to provide affordable housing appealed.

Last year BSL advertised for joint venture partners to develop the project and while they received a number of proposals all were dependent on getting the resource consent “in a timely manner”. It was expected before Christmas last year but still wasn’t close to signing off when BSL abandoned the project in March 2020.

Rather than continue “chasing the ever-moving goal posts of the SHA development”, BSL is now likely to sell the land for low density suburban residential development, Grant said.

The QLDC was approached for comment.

Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust (QLCHT) executive officer Julie Scott said they had been looking forward to working with Bright Sky and the loss of the land gifted through the SHA will have an impact on their future pipeline.

“It’s a shame...but we do have a lot of other projects in the district,” she said. Between the Hawea SHA and Hikuwai developments alone there were 60 sections allotted for the QLCHT and Julie expected at least 100 from residential developments in the Upper Clutha over the next five years. 

The Bright Sky SHA green-field development was to provide higher density land and house packages for 281 sections as well as gifting 27 allotments to the QLCHT for future community houses. 

An SHA is an area of land suitable for new housing, where development can be fast-tracked under the more permissive consenting powers provided by the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act (HASHAA) 2013. 

PHOTO: Supplied