Queenstown, Otago
Photo: UMPLASH/ MICHAEL AMADEUS
Queenstown has suffered increasing pains for years, but with the number of visitors and residents continuing to swell, it is turning into a full belly pain.
The population of Queenstown Lakes is about 52,000 people, but this swells on about 120,000 people at the summer peak.
He added pressure to the infrastructure, traffic congestion, and caused local frustration when freedom campers used streets such as bathrooms and garbage wells.
While the government pressures for more touristy arrivals, residents are talking about the challenges facing their face and what is on the horizon.
Queenstown was a small community on the brink of great development when Ifly Queenstown owner Matt Wong arrived about 23 years ago.
“When I was here, Jacks Point was the only development in the southern corridor. Ladies Mile, Shotover country, this area was green pasture. There were horses and sheep running,” he said.
“There was no sign of any development happening in this area and now, today, there are 10,000 extra houses in these areas.”
Earlier this year, Queenstown’s Lakes Counselors were warned that urgent intervention was needed to prevent local hostility to increase tourist pressures as part of a regional business proposal aimed at meeting the region’s critical needs.
Among the challenges, he found the 11 -kilometer trip between Lake Hayes and Central Queenstown could regularly exceed an hour if nothing were done due to traffic congestion.
Wong, who is also a local advisor, said tourism has a role to play on the problem and solution, but issues such as traffic congestion and infrastructure pressures have not disappeared during the quieter months.
“The analogy we always use with traffic, for example, is that you are not stuck in traffic, is traffic,” said Wong.
“And many new residents who come to Queenstown do not realize that they are actually transforming this small picturesque town, 30, 40, 50 years ago into a mature city that is becoming a small town.”
The board and government needed to investigate different ways to help finance more infrastructure, including user payments or a visitors, he said.
“Growth does not pay for growth. We had much more development obviously as a region than most other districts and this growth did not pay, it allowed growth to happen,” he said.
“But in fact it did not contribute to the investment and infrastructure that this growth brings.”
A long -term resident said the area had a lot of growth pain.
The district needed more affordable houses, but it seemed that they were receiving more second houses for foreign buyers, he said.
“We have a problem and the problem is ultramism and over development. We are not thinking of quality, we are just thinking about quantity.”
Diane bought a house here in 2008 and visited every year, saying she loved Queenstown, but had problems.
“You have to plan your time to go out for supermarkets and there are only huge problems with traffic and everything is always blocked, they are always doing the next thing … It’s really a challenge and I think this is discouraging some people,” she said.
But Les, a resident of Queenstown, didn’t understand what people were moving.
“There have always been tourists in the city, so people just have to harden and accept it. It’s like they probably moved here, knowing that, why change?”
The Mayor of Queenstown Lakes, Glyn Lewers.
Photo: RNZ / NIVA CHITTOCK
Tourists were still enjoying Queenstown, telling RNZ that it had been a beautiful and welcoming place to visit.
Oliver was regularly in the area regularly for work and said traffic was getting worse.
“I kind of changed where I get and now I get in Frankton, instead of being in Queenstown just because of traffic, and trying to get in and out can add 45 extra minutes potentially to my travel time,” he said.
But he did not think that tourists should be held responsible for infrastructure pressures, saying that governments had consistently under the regions.
“For Queenstown, tourists are really what they really contribute to making this place special beyond their natural beauty, it is the vibration they bring to the area,” he said.
Businessman Amber said Queenstown was quieter when he moved there 15 years ago, but received visitors.
She was frustrated with Carparking, saying she was forced to arrive early or pay for the nose – $ 6 for half an hour in a nearby parking lot.
Amber said it was an expensive annoyance for tourists and a real shutdown for the locals.
“What is the sense of getting to town when they leave and receive free parking around (in Frankton). They can walk quietly, they have all the amenities they need out there,” she said.
“It’s really discouraging and it’s really sad for me, because we can’t survive only in tourists in this city. We have to get in with the locals.”
Ten years ago, the infometric numbers show that the population of Queenstown Lakes was about 33,400 and has grown about 19,000 people since then.
In the regional agreement proposal, the population of Queenstown Lakes was designed to reach 100,558 until 2053.
The mayor of Queenstown Lakes, Glyn Lewers, said the community’s frustrations with tourism was probably a hangover of the sub -plating.
The board was investing $ 470 million to improve infrastructure, including drinking water and wastewater only for expected tourism growth, he said.
“But I will recognize $ 470 million is not enough. This is just to survive and probably with a descending experience of visitors. This is the best we can do without overloading the contributor,” he said.
Before the government announced that he wanted to receive more tourists, Queenstown was already predicting about 7.1 % annual tourism growth over the next five years before flattening the 3 % growth over the next five years, he said.
“Over the next 10 years, just under $ 1 billion in capital expenses is to accommodate expected growth, not to create growth, only expected growth. This represents 40 % of our capital expenses.”
Lewers said he could not stop people from moving or visiting Queenstown, so they needed to focus on how to plan more growth.
The advice had improved its data to know what it was dealing with, looked at the best and most economical places to grow through space planning and sent a regional agreement that he believed could help alleviate some of the problems, including transportation, health and education.
He believed it was a huge opportunity, but needed to be consistent and invest in the long run, not just expanding investments and Bust.
“If we get it right, we can be one of the small innovative cities with a future vision,” he said.
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