A whirlwind three-day hearing on McDonald’s Restaurants NZ’s proposal for a Wānaka McDonald’s restaurant and drive-through concluded yesterday afternoon (Wednesday November 27).

Independent commissioners heard a broad range of opinions on the controversial proposal - from views that the decision over McDonald’s would “determine the fate of the community” to it being “simply a symptom of a rapidly changing town” - over the past three days.

“Regardless of the outcome, I hope…everybody is feeling they’ve been listened to and heard,” hearing panel chair Helen Atkins said at the end of the hearing yesterday.

The experience “hasn’t been as difficult as I expected”, she said, perhaps alluding to the heated opposition to McDonald’s plans, which attracted more than 6,000 signatories in an online petition and over 300 formal submissions asking for it to be turned down.

Despite the attention the topic has attracted, there were usually no more than a dozen members of the public in the hearing audience, and only 17 of the more than 100 submitters who planned to speak ended up doing so.

Some of the submissions leaned to the dramatic, with suggestions the arrival of the multi-national fast food giant would turn Wānaka into “some kind of American suburb”, with the “masters of marketing” affecting eating habits for generations to come.

Collectively, however, the submitters displayed a deep sense of pride and protectiveness over the town, its people and its environment.

Multiple people highlighted the substantial, collaborative effort by local businesses to move away from single-use takeaway cups, when highlighting the increase in waste a McDonald’s could bring; one person teared up as she described the personal significance of Mt Iron (which the McDonald’s is proposed to be located below); and others defended independently-owned local eateries.

Numerous submitters said their main concern was the location of the McDonald’s, not what its arrival might represent.

“I understand change happens; I’m not opposed to change” one submitter said. “[But] the location is really concerning.”

That location - on rural-zoned land near the Mt Iron/SH6 intersection - was a central point of contention for the McDonald’s team and Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) staff, who debated whether the location was ‘rural, semi-rural or peri-urban’ and whether it was the ‘entrance to Wānaka’ or not.

Yesterday QLDC had its opportunity to present its views (following McDonald’s on Monday and public submitters on Tuesday) and landscape architect for QLDC, Richard Denney, said the location of the proposed McDonald’s was “absolutely the problem”.

He said the proposal to place the McDonald’s in the “most sensitive part of the site”, adding that the site itself was not just a “sliver” of rural-zoned land, but instead formed part of a “much bigger area of rural-zoned land that includes Mt Iron”.

He said the area was an “important front door to Wānaka” and formed part of a “green entry” to the township.

QLDC senior planner Andrew Woodford, the last speaker of the day, had recommended the McDonald’s be turned down in a report made before the hearing.

He told the hearing panel yesterday he had listened carefully throughout the hearing and it “hasn’t changed my overall findings and conclusions in my report”.

The commissioners have yet to set a date for a right of reply from the McDonald’s legal team, but indicated that may be late in December. Once they are satisfied they have received all the information they require they will make their decision, which would take another three weeks or so.

PHOTO: Wānaka App