Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Masterplan

Councillors adopted a revised Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Masterplan on 30 June 2022, and  approved notification to begin for changes to the land use rules in the Proposed District Plan, to enable its implementation.  

What's the latest? 

Councillors adopted a revised  Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Masterplan on 30 June 2022, and  approved notification to begin for changes to the land use rules in the Proposed District Plan, to enable its implementation.

Council’s intent to proactively plan for the Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile area has been extensively signalled and debated publicly since May 2019.

Council adopted a Masterplan for the area in October 2021, however requested that a number of matters be given further consideration.

The key changes made to the final Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Masterplan and proposed planning provisions include:

• The centralised stormwater system has been removed from the Masterplan. In its place, landowners and developers will need to demonstrate how they will manage stormwater on their sites, similar to how any development within a newly zoned area are required to deal with stormwater. Specific plan provisions have been developed to support good stormwater management that includes no discharge to Lake Hayes and high levels of treatment and attenuation of stormwater to ground within the site.

• As a result of removing the centralised stormwater management system, the final Masterplan includes a centrally located community park of approximately 2 hectares and two local parks of approximately 3000m² each.

• Whilst the density of 40 units per hectare has been retained in the medium density precincts, the 70 units per hectare in the high-density residential precinct has been reduced to 60 units per hectare. This lower density reduces the number of apartment buildings required to meet the density requirements. Noting that the zone still requires a mixture of housing typologies, sizes and affordability that would support public transport, commercial activity and community facilities for the area.

• The proposed plan provisions include policies and assessment matters encouraging the use of indigenous vegetation, and those species preferred by indigenous birds.

• The proposed plan provisions include a sub area staging plan and specific transport objectives and policies to ensure transport improvements are constructed before any development is complete.

Councillors also agreed to authorise officers to make an application to the Minister for the Environment to notify the Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Zone Provisions using the Streamlined Planning Process (SPP), as an alternative to the standard Schedule 1 Process under the Resource Management Act 1991.    As part of this  application, officers will include a procedural request  to include a full public notification process and hearing before an independent hearing panel with relevant expertise to consider areas of concern.

An announcement on the status of this application and next steps will be made in due course. 

Background

In November 2020 we shared some early ideas for a Masterplan to guide how the Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile area can grow and change for the benefit of the existing community and future generations.  These ideas generated a lot of local feedback which helped the project team to develop an emerging Masterplan and some draft planning rules to support it. This was then released for community feedback in April 2021, with feedback closing on 28 May 2021.

You'll find the draft Masterplan and Planning Provisions below. On the right hand side of this page you'll also find lots of background information and all of the feedback received so far.

Draft Masterplan and associated documents 

The draft Masterplan provides an impression of what Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile could look like in the future. In summary, it includes a wide mixture of development densities, opportunity for improved bus services, local facilities such as a town centre, a primary school and a high school and a community and sports centre.

The Masterplan will provide certainty to the community and sets expectations for developers on how the area could change over time. It's a concept for the future which will be brought to life through a district plan variation, setting clear rules for what can happen where (read more on this in the planning provisions section below).

The draft Masterplan is a very large document. It has been split into sections below.

>> Part 1 - Introduction (including national and regional policy alignment, key stakeholders, design principles, key moves and objectives)

>> Part 2a - Context Analysis (including geographic scope, history, views from the site, demographics)

>> Part 2b - Context Analysis (including local ecology, existing amenities, views and arrival, constraints and opportunities)

>> Part 3 - Engagement (including how feedback has been incorporated into this draft Masterplan)

>> Part 4 - Design Response (including principles, key moves, key features, illustrative Masterplan)

>> Part 4a - Design Principle 1: Consider SH6 as a gateway to Queenstown

>> Part 4b - Design Principle 2: Foster a unique and enduring identity

>> Part 4c - Design Principle 3: Support a healthy environment and ecology

>> Part 4d - Design Principle 4: Create self sustained and connected communities

>> Part 4e - Design Principle 5: Ensure sustainable transport Networks Communities

>> Part 4f - Design Principle 6: Do density well, provide quality and diverse housing

>> Part 4g - Design Principle 7: Develop a resilient and adaptable plan

>> Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Transport Strategy

We've also included a link to the presentation made at the Community Information Session held on 5 May.

>> Community Information Session - Presentation

Draft Planning Provisions 

The Masterplan sets out the spatial framework and ensures a holistic approach to planning for growth in this area of the Wakatipu Basin. But it is a non-statutory document. To give effect to the Masterplan at a statutory level, a variation to the Proposed District Plan has been drafted to translate the key outcomes of the Masterplan into zones, objectives, policies and rules for incorporation into the Proposed District Plan.

The development of the Masterplan and the feedback received from stakeholders and the public (through the public open days and surveys held in November 2020) has formed the basis for the draft provisions.

What are the draft District Plan provisions trying to do?

The draft provisions have been formulated as amendments to the existing Proposed District Plan and are therefore shown as additions (underlined text) and deletions (strikethrough text). One new chapter District Plan chapter has been proposed: the Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile Town Centre Zone. This is to ensure consistency with the other existing town centres (Queenstown, Wanaka and Arrowtown) each of which have their own individual chapters.

The key concepts of the draft amendments to the Proposed District Plan include:

• The rezoning of land currently zoned Rural, Rural Lifestyle, or Large Lot Residential to a mixture of High Density, Medium Density and Lower Density Suburban Residential Zones and the extension of the existing Urban Growth Boundary in this area to incorporate these areas;
• The introduction of a Structure Plan that identifies the location of key infrastructure to be provided, key features to be protected, and breaks down the area into Sub-Areas as a mechanism to ensure appropriate integration of development;
• Introduction of an average density within the High and Medium Density zoned areas to achieve a density sufficient to encourage a shift to different transport modes and support the new town centre area;
• Requiring resource consent for buildings in these areas, with standards relating to residential amenity and design, to ensure that higher density development also brings high quality residential amenity;
• The removal of minimum carparking activities for all activities within the Structure Plan area, and the introduction of maximum carparking standards to encourage a shift to alternative transport modes; and
• The rezoning of the Council-owned property at 516 Frankton-Ladies Mile Highway to Open Space and Recreation – Community Purposes Zone to enable this land to be developed for community facilities for both the existing communities and the future community.

The full suite of draft planning provisions can be read below.

Te Pūtahi Ladies Mile - Draft Planning Provisions