Plans For Mount Cook Village

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 20

Plans For Mount Cook Village

Plans for a new settlement on the border of the Mount Cook National Park were announced this week by the chairman of the park board (Mr N. S. Coad).

The settlement, to be known as Mount Cook village, will be close to the Birch Hill stream above the State highway as it enters the park about six miles from the Hermitage. Among the amenities planned for the village are a school, a church, a hotel, motels, a camping area, a commercial block, a small golf course, a hall and picture theatre, a police station, a bus depot, a doctor’s residence, club huts, and walking tracks into the Ben Ohau range.

Mr Coad said the reason for starting a separate village at this stage was that the demand for accommodation in the park was rising steeply, and the Hennitage area, even including the flats in front of it, would almost certainly be too small to cope with the expected expansion of the next few years, certainly of the next 20 years. A new site would have to be found in any case, therefore, within a measurable time, and the board considered it better to make new plans now than wait until a probably somewhat untidy array of service buildings had sprawled across the Hermitage flat and spoilt the view of the mountains for park visitors. Development in the Hermitage area will be limited to the Hermitage and Glencoe fans. The Hermitage fan carries the Hermitage itself and its ancillary buildings, the park headquarters and rangers’ houses, and buildings belonging to the Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company Ltd.; the Glencoe

'an has the new restaurant, he school, and a number of notels. Twenty-six acres of he Hermitage fan is conrolled by the Tourist Hotel Corporation, which will de--elop its area in consultation vith the board and will Umost certainly provide furher high-class accommodation there soon. The board ■>lans to retain its headquarters on the present site and to provide more facilities for day visitors and Hermitage guests. The new village is planned to be complementary to the Hermitage development. Only a few essential servicing staff will be allowed to live in the Hermitage area.

The exact site for the new village has not been decided, as the preferred area is outside the park and is part of the Glentanner run. Its acquisition is still under negotiation with the runholders, who hold a Crown lease of the site and value it as a lambing area. The board’s second choice is a site just inside the park on the Birch Hill fan, on the other side of the stream.

The preferred site is on an old lateral moraine of the Tasman glacier. While the general effect is of a terrace, the surface is extremely uneven. almost undulating, and

I will give opportunity for i landscaping both in the ser- 1 vice roads and on individual < sections. The view up the valley includes Mount Cook i and many other peaks and the i Tasman valley and glacier; down valley, Lake Pukaki is i visible even at its present low i level and will come much I more into view if the Elec- ; tricity Department’s proposal 1 to raise it is proceeded with.

On the opposite side of the "alley is the Liebig range, which at this point is 7000 ft or more high, while immediately behind the site is a magnificent coomb reaching back

into the Ben Ohan rance, which has a general level al- i of at least 7000 ft. The site is one in which a catchment survey is conducted by the Soil Consei vation and Rivers Control Council. Data collected in the survey indicates that the rainfall in the area is about 100 in a year—only about half the Hermitage figure. If the preferred site is available, it will probably he developed by the Lands and Survey Department in consultation with the board. The siting and architecture and certain other matters such as the control of domestic animals would be controlled by the board, but otherwise the village would be operated as a normal township within the Mackenzie county. Sections would be available for private development subject to the requirements of the board The alternative site is lower than the preferred area, and

drainage could be a problem in its lower parts. The area of usable land is about half that on the other side of the stream. The view up and across the valley is as good as from the upper site, but the coomb is not visible, nor is there any view down the valley. The biggest advantage of the fan site is that it is more sheltered. The National Parks Authority has approved the development of a Mount Cook village in principle, and has asked the Lands and Survey Department to investigate the possibility of obtaining the Glentanner site.