Queenstown Lakes District Council has appointed eight commissioners to hear submissions on the Proposed District Plan next year.

Each will be part of a team of three, alongside a Councillor and independent hearings chairman Denis Nugent.

The hearings are scheduled to begin in February and run through until July. Each hearing will be advertised and open to the public.

The Commissioners were confirmed at last month’s Council meeting. They are Brad Coombs, Yvette Couch-Lewis, David McMahon, Bob Nixon, Trevor Robinson, Paul Rodgers, Mark St Clair and Jane Taylor. Next week the Council will consider making a ninth appointment to complete the line-up of subject experts available to consider the submissions.

The Council received over 800 submissions on the Proposed District Plan; these are all online at www.qldc.govt.nz along with a 1952-page summary. A two-week period of further submissions is currently underway, closing on 16 December.

Over a third of the submissions sought rezoning for parcels of rural land, and the Council has produced a map that shows the areas proposed for rezoning.

Tony Avery, the Acting General Manager of Planning and Development, said that the map on the website showing the rezoning requests had been updated since it was first released, with some additional properties included which had been inadvertently missed originally. 

While every effort is being made to ensure its accuracy, anyone wanting to make a further submission needs to refer to the summary and the submissions themselves.