Peter Thiel’s lawyer has taken aim at council staff and local experts in the latest filing to attempt to green-light the billionaire’s proposed Damper Bay luxury lodge. 

The American tech mogul has sought approval for a sprawling series of buildings totalling close to 2,000sqm at the 193ha lakeside property he purchased in 2015 for $13.5M.

Thiel’s lawyer last week submitted his closing arguments - following a resource consent hearing in late May - and in it he denounced many of the claims of the proposal’s opponents.

Upper Clutha Environmental Society secretary Julian Haworth is “...unable to present an objective view,” according to Thiel’s lawyer Mike Holm, who also claimed that presentations for the Longview Environmental Trust “...clearly illustrated a mindset determined to find a ‘fatal flaw’ in the application”.

The tech mogul purchased the site in 2015 and commissioned Kengo Kuma and Associates to design the proposed lodge.

Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) has already recommended the application be refused and Thiel’s lawyer reserved his most searing criticism for its staff and consultants.

“…the council staff/consultant responses to commissioner questions as to the specific basis for their opposition were generally weak or unconvincing - lacking in balance or…credibility,” he said.

The lawyer claimed the recommendation to deny the application was “fundamentally flawed and deficient”.

The closing arguments included the offer to remove a ‘meditation pod’ - one of the original proposal’s buildings - from the application and provided more details of a ‘back of house’ staff building as requested by the commissioners. 

The proposed luxury lodge, designed by Japanese architecture firm Kengo Kuma and Associates and depicted nestled into the hillside and camouflaged with living green roofs, would bring ecological, tourism and economic benefits to Wānaka, Thiel’s lawyer argued.

It is up to independent commissioners Wendy Baker, Ian Munro and councillor Glyn Lewers to make a final decision on the proposal.