Just when a long-running debate over proposed district plan (PDP) schedules for Upper Clutha priority landscapes appeared to have been resolved, it is back on the drawing board.
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.
On Monday, a period for public feedback was reopened until August 30, before the corrected documents are renotified.
The schedules relate to one Outstanding Natural Feature (ONF) and 12 Rural Character Landscapes (RCL) around Wānaka, Hāwea, Luggate, and other parts of the Upper Clutha.
Upper Clutha Environmental Society president Julian Haworth said the council approach to rural landscape schedules treated the Upper Clutha basin as "second class’’, compared to 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.
Mr Haworth said the council had not implemented the terms of the agreement that caused the society to withdraw its High Court appeal.
After an independent hearing panel reheard the case and made recommendations in 2023, the amended variation was approved in a full council meeting on June 27 before being withdrawn on July 25.
The council’s QLDC planning and development general manager Dave Wallace said in a statement in July the schedules did not change PDP rules but would "make it easier to understand how a proposal for development may affect a landscape’s identified values."
