Source
https://www.qldc.govt.nz/your-council/district-plan/operative-district-plan — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Queenstown Lakes District Plan — the council-profile pilot (REG_020)
The D_003 council-profile PILOT — verified tier
Full operative QLDC district plan (1,488 pp, Operative 07/11/2025), read verbatim. It shows the council-planning layer (D_003) can be held at the same
verifiedstandard as the national spine. Whole plan filed as the raw; this page records only the rural rules the profile schema needs, verbatim.
Summary
The operative district plan for Queenstown Lakes. Read against the 8-question profile schema (D_003), it produces the campaign’s first verbatim finding of a genuine general-land community-density pathway — and shows it is council- and zone-specific, exactly the nuance the sampling method exists to surface.
Key claims
- claim: "RURAL RESIDENTIAL DENSITY (the general Zone Standard 8.2.4.2 viii, verbatim): 'In the Rural Residential Zone, except in the Rural Residential area at the north of Lake Hayes: a. for allotments less than 8000m2 there shall be only one residential unit. b. for allotments equal to or greater than 8000m2 there shall be no more than 1 residential unit per 4000 m2.' So above 8000 m2 the Rural Residential Zone permits 1 dwelling per 4000 m2 (0.4 ha) - a ~4 ha site permits ~10 dwellings. This is MORE ENABLING than the national NES-DMRU one-DMRU-per-site default (a genuine general-land community-density pathway). ⚠ Verified as the GENERAL zone standard, distinct from the Lake Hayes / Bob's Cove / Ferry Hill site-specific density overlays."
source_location: "Zone Standard 8.2.4.2 viii (Ch 8, Rural Living Area Rules)"
- claim: "RURAL GENERAL ZONE is the restrictive counterpoint (verbatim, Rule 15.2.6, subdivision): 'In the Rural General Zone all subdivision and location of residential building platforms shall be a Discretionary Activity' (except the Kirimoko Block, Wanaka). The Rural General Zone (the landscape-protected majority of the district) operates a 'residential building platform' regime - a dwelling requires an approved building platform, obtained by Discretionary consent, to protect Outstanding Natural Landscapes."
source_location: "Rule 15.2.6 vi (subdivision); Ch 5.3 Rural General rules"
- claim: "NO PAPAKAINGA / MAORI-PURPOSE PROVISIONS. A full-text search of the 1,488-page operative plan returns ZERO occurrences of 'papakainga', 'papakāinga', or 'Māori purpose zone'. The district plan is silent on a Maori-land housing pathway. (The NES-Papakainga (REG_011) now supplies this nationally from 2 July 2026, overriding the silent district plan.)"
source_location: "full-text search of the operative plan (0 hits)"
- claim: "ZONE FRAMEWORK: the QLDC operative plan predates the National Planning Standards zone names - it uses Rural General + Ski Area Sub-Zone (Ch 5), Rural Living Areas = Rural Lifestyle + Rural Residential (Ch 8), and Rural Visitor Zones (Ch 12), rather than the standardised 'Rural / Rural lifestyle / Settlement' set. Subdivision and financial contributions are in Part 15."
source_location: "Contents; Ch 5, 8, 12; Part 15"Neobiome Intelligence relevance
The pilot finding: QLDC is a TWO-SPEED district
Applying the D_003 schema returns not one answer but two, by zone:
| Rural zone | Community-density position | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Rural Residential (Zone Std 8.2.4.2 viii) | 🟢 1 dwelling per 4000 m² above 8000 m² — a ~4 ha site permits ~10 dwellings | More enabling than the national one-per-site default |
| Rural Lifestyle (Ch 8) | Low-density, minimum/average allotment controls | Moderate |
| Rural General (Rule 15.2.6, the landscape majority) | Every dwelling needs a Discretionary consented building platform | Restrictive — landscape-driven |
So “is QLDC permissive?” has no single answer — it depends on the rural zone. Its Rural Residential zone is the first genuine general-land community pathway the campaign has found (verbatim, at ~1 dwelling/0.4 ha); its Rural General zone is among the most restrictive (a Discretionary building platform per dwelling, to protect Outstanding Natural Landscapes). This zone-dependence is precisely why D_003 profiles the distribution rather than asserting a national answer — and why “council permissiveness” is an outcome to be discovered, not a stratification variable.
The papakāinga silence
The operative plan has no papakāinga provisions at all. This is a concrete illustration of why the NES-Papakāinga (REG_011) national override matters — before 2 July 2026, a papakāinga in this district had no district-plan pathway; the NES-P now supplies one over the top of the silent plan.
Method note
- Verified tier achieved for a council. A whole district plan read verbatim from one published PDF holds at the national-spine standard, so the 5-council layer need not drop to a
medium/AI-compiled tier. This resolves the tier questionD_003left open. - Feeds the comparison page council_planning_profiles (QLDC row = verified).
Research targets
Research gaps
- None new. QLDC is the first of the
D_003five; the remaining four (Auckland, Tasman, Selwyn/Waimakariri, Gisborne) are read the same way, verbatim from the published plan.
Notes
Primary — the operative district plan, read verbatim via pdftotext -layout — data_quality: verified. Whole 1,488-page plan filed as the raw; only the schema-relevant rural rules are recorded on this page (the pattern used for the 1,004-page RMA, REG_012).
⚠ Currency: operative as at 07/11/2025. District plans are amended by plan change; QLDC also runs proposed-plan processes. Re-confirm the operative status of the cited rules before the deliverable relies on them.
Connections
Links to
Decisions (1): D_003: Council profiling — a purposive 5-counc…
Concepts (1): Council Planning Profiles (D_003 five-council …
Sources (1): REG_011
Referenced by
Sources (2): REG_021 · REG_022
Concepts (1): Council Planning Profiles (D_003 five-council …