Flint's Park aims for summer construction
The first major subdivision on the northern side of Queenstown's Ladies Mile finally has the planning green light.
Around 370 homes will be built on the 15.6 hectares of land beneath Slope Hill, opposite Queenstown Country Club. They will include duplexes, terraces, apartments and potentially some standalone housing.
Glenpanel Development's Mark Tylden says he hopes the first residents could be moving in within a year, following an eight-year planning battle to get resource consent.
The project was approved by an independent panel under the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-Track consenting.
"We're pretty pleased that we've got a subdivision consent," Tylden says. "It has taken a long time, eight years from our first SHA [Special Housing Area] application, and you can make some inferences about the housing crisis from that.
"Now we move on to the detailed design for the horizontal infrastructure, get that through engineering approval, and hopefully with joy and good fortune start construction this summer."
Tylden says the sizing of the stormwater system will be the key element in determining the final layout and where the different types of housing will be situated.
"The plan variation envisages duplexes, terraces and apartments. We're trying to include standalone housing because it's still the most affordable type, but we'll just have to see whether we can get that across the line and still meet the density requirements."
The majority of the housing will be on the flat fields on Ladies Mile, with a T-junction access to the State Highway 6, between Stalker roundabout and the planned Howard's Drive roundabout.
There'll also be a mixed-use precinct surrounding the heritage building Glenpanel Homestead, towards the hill, including homes, shops, health facilities and public open spaces.
Properties are likely to be turn-key, rather than self-build, although the developer might sell off some super lots to other property companies. It's too early to say what the prices will be.
Glenpanel Development's other Ladies Mile project, Flint's Park West, up to 315 homes on 18.4ha of land closer to Stalker roundabout, was also referred by the Minister for the fast-track process but then rejected by the first panel, so will not progress.
Under the first Flint's Park application through the SHA process, the developer had agreed to gift 10% of the lots to the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust. But the delays and planning battles mean that now won't be the case.
"We've incurred a whole bunch more costs since then. We literally can't afford to go giving away land for free. The development contributions have gone up, the cost of developing land is very high now."
Tylden says the company is, however, happy to work with the housing trust to find away of including community housing, without passing the cost onto other purchasers.
"Our main aim is to still try and hit the market with a product that people can afford to get in to," Tylden says.
While Flint's Park has jumped through the planning hoops over the years, Queenstown Lakes District Council has separately pushed to rezone the whole of Ladies Miles from rural to residential, allowing for up to 2,400 homes with a density of 40 units per hectare.
A masterplan was adopted back in June 2022 and the final recommendation on the plan change is expected to be made to Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds soon.
