Context
A year after the Tarras airport proposal was first unveiled by Christchurch Airport, the Queenstown Lakes District Mayor, Council and airport company had refused to consider any potential benefit it might offer the district. Instead, Mayor Boult roundly condemned the proposal.
We drew attention to the launching of a Research and Innovation Centre in Frankton to highlight the potential possible beyond tourism if Council was willing to consider the opportunities.
QLDC full council meeting
June 30, 2021
Kia ora, I am John Hilhorst representing FlightPlan2050.
I was excited to see Sir Hermann Hauser join our Deputy Prime Minister and Alistair Porter to launch a $45 million Research and Innovation Centre in Frankton. Hauser is known as the father of Silicon Fen – the technology belt around Cambridge in the UK, home of over 6000 high-tech companies. Hauser suggested Queenstown was perhaps 30 years behind Silicon Fen but believed it had similar potential.
The investment is a real boost for our economic diversification.
Current efforts to attract remote workers are commendable as a first step. But, as students quickly realised during Covid shutdowns, remote lessons fell far short of their school or university-based learning experience. Yesterday, the education ministry reported that teenagers in Year 10 were nearly 20 weeks – that’s half a school year – behind in writing achievement due to the Covid lockdowns. And Gabe Newell, the billionaire whose business does more Internet traffic than the whole of the UK, admitted his workers are 30% less productive while working remotely.
To develop a thriving knowledge community, we need more aspiration than remote working.
We must understand the needs of a knowledge economy and then restructure our district to meet those needs. A foundational requirement is population density.
We have the chance to create such a centre, but it needs your leadership. On Frankton Flats, we could grow an inspiring alpine campus.
This same strategy would solve all the Wakatipu’s pressing problems. It would concentrate population, avoiding transport blockage and urban sprawl that sees Ladies Mile rejected by 84% of submitters. By 2060, some 30,000 people, nearly half the Wakatipu’s residents, could live in Frankton: a 15-minute city in which they could commute to work, school and play using active or micro transport.
The government and Porter’s 45 million dollar investment is tiny compared to the impact you could have with a strategy to rezone Frankton.
The airport statement of intent is one of your tools. Today you could instruct QAC to fully investigate the opportunities the Tarras airport presents.
University of Otago professor of competition law, Rex AaaDaa, has outlined several ways a cooperative outcome could be achieved. QAC could become the council’s multi billion-dollar property company. A multitude of other hugely positive outcomes would follow, including the most effective climate change strategy.
But you need QAC and your Council executive to investigate and learn more. Please instruct them today, using this SOI.
Thank you.
Noho ora mai