The Queenstown Lakes District Council strategy committee will be asked next week to adopt, as a Council decision, the Commissioners’ recommendation for Plan Change 4 - North Three Parks. The plan change seeks to re-zone approximately 46.8 hectares of land to the north of Three Parks, Wanaka for residential and business activities. The plan change was originally notified on 29 March 2012 and a hearing was held in June, 2012.

"The commissioners have now finalised their report and recommendations and the strategy committee will determine if Council wishes to adopt them," QLDC senior policy analyst Sue Mavor said.

North Three Parks (owned by Ballantyne Investments Ltd., R Moseby and M Gordon, S Robertson, Canterbury Helicopters Ltd. And Aurora Energy Ltd.) lies between the Wanaka Town Centre and the Three Parks Special Zone and is consistent with the proposed zoning in the Wanaka Structure Plan.

"It’s a logical progression of development from the urban area and creates a long term vision that integrates with the surrounding uses and the proposed Three Parks development," Ms Mavor said.

Although the dwelling capacity model (July 2010) showed that there was a considerable amount of residential zoned land in Wanaka, the plan change would zone land for medium density residential, which was not currently widely available in Wanaka.

If the committee adopted the commissioners’ recommendations, the decision on Plan Change 4 would be notified, she said. A period of 30 working days, from receipt of the notice of decision, would then be available for any appeals.

"If there are no appeals the plan change will be made operative," Ms Mavor said. The plan change process would then take some time and development would be staged to ensure the market was not flooded with residential land," she said.