For people who come back to Wānaka after a year or two away the growth is breath-taking: Building to rival gold rush boomtowns. 

But unlike those short-lived developments, Wānaka is here to stay. There’s a feeling in the air that this place is going to become New Zealand’s newest city. The signs are all around - Three Parks, North Lake, Cardrona, Luggate, Hāwea, to name a few.

There’s also the promise of Silverlight Studios spending $280M plus worker accommodation. How exciting! But let’s not get carried away: Silverlight’s two-year old promise is so far just words.

Christoper Horan 

Even if this grand vision turns out to be pie in the sky, the proposal implies that now is the time and Wānaka is the place. Wānaka has become a lure. People come for a holiday and the place captures them; they want to come back to live among the lakes, rivers, mountains and beautiful, healthy-looking people. If they are athletes, there’s the glitter of recent international successes, suitable winter and summer training in an environment that is increasingly looking like the place to be. If Silverlight does not come, others will take its place.

Go deeper: Upper Clutha population pushes past 17,000

Let’s assume Silverlight goes ahead, does anyone really believe they’ll build accommodation as they go for thousands of workers? Of course not.

Yet the blot on Wānaka’s landscape is the virtual impossibility for a young low-income family to get a secure, affordable home. Silverlight, or any other big industry player, would make that task even more gruelling.

The word despair is not fanciful here. A town that cannot even house its residents has nothing to be proud of. The chronic housing shortage is not an act of God. For those who benefit from it, it is a gift, a cash cow that keeps on giving.

Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) is trying here and there to take the edge off its dereliction, but to label Hāwea’s Longview subdivision “affordable” is evidence that council members do not have a clue about the financial circumstances of low-paid workers.

Better to dream of Wānaka’s natural advantages, its potential to become New Zealand’s most attractive destination for national and international visitors. Focus on the buzz, the stimulating tingle that once persuaded energetic and talented New Yorkers to flee the city for the sun and wide open spaces of Los Angeles, and forget the obstacle of exorbitant rent.

All western cities are beset by similar, insoluble problems, and look what’s happened. As the problem grew, so did the sight of people living in doorways, cars and tents. But not in Wānaka, surely. 

Didn’t we once say that about food banks?

Yes, some private developers and QLDC are showing willingness, but it looks more like resignation that nothing is really going to change. Wānaka’s housing performance, as opposed to its policy, serves to house the wealthy. The message for the workers is: “tough”.

The independent Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust, without doubt the best in New Zealand, is on our doorstep. It is capable of providing sufficient home ownership schemes to fit everyone’s needs over time and make Wānaka a truly glittering destination. 

The only reason it is not given the authority and resources to do what it does better than anyone else is that it represents public service - a quality as welcome as death to the business sector. 

Christopher Horan is a Lake Hāwea writer.

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