The Wānaka Golf Club (WGC) says it was “stacked against us from the start” after councillors last week approved an easement allowing a private driveway to cut across part of its course.

The nearly 56-hectare course, a recreation reserve designated for golf, will now host a legal right of way and a water drainage easement for the owners of 91, 93 and 99 Youghal Street.

A hearing was held in August to consider the property owners’ request to formalise the driveway which crosses multiple private properties, as well as the WGC, which the club opposed unsuccessfully.

The club said it would increase the risk of ball strike, impede on plans to add a par 5 to the club’s front nine holes, and risked setting a precedent.

WGC general manager Kim Badger said she believed that “[Queenstown Lakes District Council] took the easy way out and used the golf course, Crown-owned recreation reserve land, to fix an issue between themselves and the applicants”.

Deputy mayor Quentin Smith, who sat on the hearing panel for the easement alongside fellow councillors Gavin Bartlett and Niki Gladding, said the issue was “super complex”.

“There were basically a series of mistakes made by all parties over a long period of time and we are picking up the pieces and trying to make the best of it with minimal impact on the reserve and the public,” he said.

“There’s a bunch of other complex issues that remain around civil matters and stormwater and other things that are yet to play out.”

Niki Gladding agreed that it was “a tricky situation and it needed resolution”. 

However, she chose to vote against granting the easement because of “concerns for the rights of the golf course into the future if land use changes”.

Niki said she wanted to grant the easement “on the basis of what we had in front of us so that if the land use did intensify it would then come back to the council for another decision, and then we could determine which conditions need to be put in place to mitigate any impacts on the course”.

A council report on the proposed easement said QLDC “normally…discourages easements across its reserves as it has a responsibility to protect reserves for current and future public use”. 

However, in this situation “the existing easement is inadequate and there are no practical alternative options to formalise the easement or gain compliance”. 

The easement “does not impact the golf club’s use of the land to any greater degree than the existing easement”, the report said.

Kim said QLDC failed to consider the implications for the club, and it did not adopt any of its proposed mitigation measures like fencing for ball strike, signage, or limiting further development.

“The decision has served only to improve the value of three properties, while creating a health and safety and liability risk for users of the recreation reserve,” she said.

The property owners will be responsible for relocating and formalising the driveway/right of way, including all of the works, and the cost of the works, QLDC said.

PHOTO: Wānaka App