Winery neighbours to continue fight against helicopter application

Neighbours opposed to an application for helicopter landings at Mt Soho winery, near Arrowtown, say they will continue to fight the applicant's appeal in the Environment Court.

Dame Elizabeth Hanan said she and her husband would apply to the Environment Court for a waiver of their late lodging of a submission against Edwin Lamont's appeal of the Queenstown Lakes District Council's refusal of resource consent to land helicopters at his Mt Soho winery.

Dame Elizabeth said it was a matter of precedent, that she and others did not want a commercial helicopter landing pad in the quiet rural-general zoned area on the outskirts of Arrowtown.

It was a similar issue to proposals for other helicopter landing sites around the Wakatipu basin, she said.

Instead of being notified about the appeal by the applicant, as required by the court, Dame Elizabeth said she and her husband found out about it after talking to a neighbour.

"If we hadn't found out about it [the appeal] at the last minute, we'd be stuck with it [the helicopter pad]."

She had owned the property, zoned rural general in the QLDC district plan, since 1972, after her parents bought it in 1964.

Her resolution to fight Mr Lamont's appeal follows a decision in the Environment Court, dated January 13, 2008, which states the Hanans and others may apply for a waiver because the court found at least one other submitter had not been served with Mr Lamont's notice of appeal. After Mr Lamont lodged a late application to appeal the QLDC decision, the Environment Court subsequently allowed him to proceed and required him to notify all parties to his original application.

Negotiations continued between the council and Mr Lamont's counsel and those interested parties to the appeal, and an agreement was approved in October last year, Lakes Environmental planning manager Brian Fitzpatrick said.

However, "it appeared" several submitters to the original application had not been served notice that it was going ahead [and] were therefore not party to the negotiations, and the matter had been referred back to the court, district council chief executive officer Duncan Field said.

Now, the appeal had been adjourned to give the interested parties an opportunity to prove whether or not they had been notified of the appeal, he said.

The court required Mr Lamont to send a copy of its decision to all interested parties amd Dame Elizabeth said she would "most definitely" be pursuing the matter.

But, 10 years after he moved to the area, and after spending "a fortune" of $35,000 on the process as a legitimate applicant, Mr Lamont said he was not going to back down, and that while people had a right to make a submission on his application, they were holding up progress.

Mr Lamont maintained he had notified all the interested parties twice and it was "just people poking their noses in".

He objected to the resource consent application having been notified because it had led to a great expense for him.

The helicopter operation would allow people who had their weddings at his winery, and those visitors from overseas who spend "serious money", to arrive in style and bring valuable income to other businesses in the town, not just his own, he explained.

The interested parties had until February 27, 2009, to respond to the court's latest ruling.