The Queenstown Lakes District Council last month withdrew an approved variation to its PDP landscape schedules for the Upper Clutha so it could correct some of the maps.
Last week, a period for public feedback was reopened until today, before the corrected documents are renotified.
The schedules relate to one outstanding natural feature and 12 rural character landscapes located around Wānaka, Hāwea, Luggate and other parts of the Upper Clutha.
Upper Clutha Environmental Society president Julian Haworth said the council’s approach to rural landscape schedules treated the Upper Clutha basin as "second class" compared with the Wakatipu basin, and chapters 3 and 21 of the PDP, regarding strategic landscapes, should be amended as well.
The society previously appealed the landscape variation to the High Court before withdrawing from that action.
The council had not implemented the terms of the agreement that caused the society to withdraw its appeal, Mr Haworth said.
After an independent hearing panel reheard the case and made recommendations last year, the amended variation was approved in a full council meeting on June 27 before being withdrawn on July 25.
QLDC planning and development general manager Dave Wallace said in a statement in July the schedules did not change PDP rules but would be used to outline the values of identified landscapes, to help make it clearer what needed to be protected, maintained or enhanced and "make it easier to understand how a proposal for development [might] affect a landscape’s identified values".
In his feedback to the council on August 13, Mr Haworth described the variation as "puzzling" and the council as being "illogical" and "nonsensical".
The society supported the schedules, but failing to reference them in chapters 3 and 21 of the PDP was a "critical error in terms of controlling adverse effects on landscape values", he said.
"Because of this, resource consent applicants will inevitably argue that the Upper Clutha rural character landscapes have no strategic importance. This will lead to poor resource management outcomes."
Feedback closed on Friday on the council’s Let’s Talk website.
MORE INFO: qldc.govt.nz/upper-clutha-schedules, council offices and libraries.
