Lake Wakatipu towards the settlement of Glenorchy. Photo / Alan Gibson
The lakeside drive from Queenstown to Glenorchy lives up to its billing as one of New Zealand's most scenic roads - it just gets better at every bend as the north Wakatipu basin reveals itself.
Cradled in this beauty is Glenorchy, population 250, its road's-end location helping to keep tourism numbers in check for most of the year. Just 45 minutes' drive but a world apart from Queenstown's bustle, it is the gateway to the Routeburn Track, Mt Aspiring National Park - and, as the sign says, to Paradise, a dot on the map in a wilderness valley which provided locations for The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Top of the Lake.
Increasingly, the road to Glenorchy is paved with the rates of foreign investors who have snapped up properties along the route. Just outside town is Wyuna Preserve, a gated subdivision of 34 lots where 2ha sections are going for $2 million. About a third have sold to date - all to foreign buyers.
Among them are Americans Paul and Debbi Brainerd, whose fortune stems from his pioneering development of Pagemaker desktop publishing software in the 1980s. Since selling the business to Adobe in the early '90s, the couple have used their wealth largely for philanthropy.
But their plans for Glenorchy, however well-meaning, have run into a wall of opposition.
A year ago, they bought the run-down Glenorchy campground and general store, closed them, and sent bulldozers in to clear the cabins. Then they bought surrounding land. There was talk of a conference centre but locals were more concerned by the loss of the campground over summer where Kiwis and foreign backpackers paid $12 a night for a tent site.
Then plans evolved into a three-phase redevelopment: an eco-friendly campground with space for camper vans; replacing the camp store with a one-stop shop selling food and gifts, an information centre, cafe, meeting room and artists studio; and comfortable cabins and cottages with a massage facility for more well-heeled visitors. The couple say all profits will be distributed by a trust for community purposes such as education and healthcare.
The development is expected to add about 200 beds to the town's capacity - but some accommodation and hospitality operators fear it will put them out of business.
The campground sits near the entrance to town on the main road. The town centre is off the main drag on Mull St. Some businesses fear visitors won't venture beyond the new "marketplace" development. Especially now the Brainerds want to redesign the town entrance.
"A group of us have concerns it will move the centre of town," says opposition ringleader Niki Gladding. "And do we need another cafe?"
Gladding lives just outside town in a corrugated iron house as rustic as the surroundings. When she arrived from Auckland 13 years ago, you could buy a section for $40,000, she says. "Most New Zealanders can't afford to live in Wyuna Preserve."
"I didn't think foreigners could come in and buy so much land - the campground is now the same size as the commercial centre. The rules for foreign investment are too loose."
She concedes more locals support the development than oppose it.
"A lot of small towns would love to have someone coming in and building a nice asset," says community association chairman Pete Reid. He says the foreign investments on the town's doorstep - Blanket Bay Lodge, Aro Ha retreat and Wyuna Preserve - have created many jobs. "The campground is going to be another thing that attracts good types of people who will come and stay."
This is the village that famously fought progress in the form of a proposed bus tunnel near the Routeburn, under the Humboldt mountains to Milford Sound. It would have meant 80 busloads of tourists passing through each day, with economic spinoffs if they stopped for a drink, a feed and souvenirs, or a jetboat ride. But Glenorchians didn't want their tranquillity disturbed.
The campground project has split the unity forged over the tunnel.
"It's sad that wealthy Americans can come into tiny Glenorchy and split the town in half," says Charles Cramp, co-owner of The Gallery Cafe on Mull St. "It has got very personal."
John Glover, who runs Glenorchy Lake House and Kinloch Lodge, fears the new accommodation provider won't be competing on level terms. With the Brainerds bankrolling the development, it could undercut competitors if costs such as insurance and rent are discounted, he says.
Paul Brainerd says prices will compare to Queenstown rates. "He wants to make a profit for his family; we want to make a profit for the community as a whole."
Supporters, who claim the backing of the silent majority, say it's rubbish that the town is divided.
"About half a dozen people are anti it," says Graham Dunstan, who owns Glenorchy Lodge on Mull St. "The person leading it is a bloody foreigner as well - she's from Auckland.
"I grew up in Queenstown and I'm not considered a local."
It's just that critics keep finding fresh ammunition - sometimes with the Brainerds' help. When Gladding wrote to the Overseas Investment Office, it transpired that some of the land purchases needed OIO approval - which the Brainerds had failed to seek. The couple say it was an oversight by their lawyer and consent was needed only on a technicality. In September, retrospective approval was sought. A decision is awaited.
There's been other wrangling over walkways, height, density restrictions, a new sewage scheme ...
"I think it's the American thing," says one local who won't be named. "They think they can just march into town and buy everything up."
This may seem nothing more than an overheated parish pump row. But Glenorchy is the kind of place most people like to think they could still stumble upon - sitting on the edge of a tourism mecca, resisting change. The main street reflects a growing tourism reliance - cafes, a hotel, gift shop, museum, a couple of tour operators, a garage that doubles as a post office - but you could throw a blanket over the lot. Unpretentious holiday homes and baches on unfenced sections fill surrounding streets.
But most businesses are enjoying a steady rise in visitor numbers and, with foreign investors at the gate, how long can it last?
"We love this town as it is - we don't want to become another Queenstown," Gladding says. "I don't mind a bit of foreign investment but it gets to the point where it starts to change the culture of the town."
The Brainerds may be the bridgehead of inevitable change but there's one key twist: they're not in it for the money. Their philanthropic track record includes projects which strengthen communities and an environmental learning centre near Seattle. Since arriving at Wyuna, Paul Brainerd has helped bring fast broadband to the town and provided iPads to the school.
The planned development is laden with self-sufficient and eco-friendly features: solar panels for energy, "healthy" buildings, water storage, car-free zones, a community garden ... "We like to invest where there's some kind of need," she says.
The couple accept that, being both wealthy and foreign, they are up against it. But they're taken aback by the hostility of "a small minority".
Support seems to have grown since the Brainerds reopened the general store on January 1, selling Italian gelato, fresh fruit and vegies, eco-cosmetics, luxury items - and Vogel's bread. "We haven't had these things before," one local explains. "It's great."
Gladding retorts: "They stock a whole bunch of stuff that people don't need. I came here to get away from all that excess. People don't come here to see a slice of America."
Dunstan won't have a bar of it. "Glenorchy's the best one-day drive in the world and it will remain so. It's not going to change it."
Dedicated environmentalists Paul and Debbi Brainerd spent years visiting New Zealand before settling on Lake Wakatipu. The philanthropists purchased at Wyuna Preserve, an exclusive subdivision outside Glenorchy carved out of Wyuna Station, a former Crown pastoral lease.
Wyuna was acquired by retired American businessman Tom Tusher - developer of world-renowned Blanket Bay Lodge on the lake edge - over several years, at first as minority shareholder in a joint venture with Queenstown developer John Darby.
Tusher, the former CEO of Levi Strauss, later bought Darby out and put the 12,500ha station - much of it steep, marginal land - through tenure review, paying the Crown $1.5 million for freehold title to 2900ha, with the Crown resuming 9500ha for conservation purposes.
The deal allowed Tusher to develop Wyuna Preserve, covering 180ha on the lower slopes. Marketing stresses the magnificent views of the lake, Dart River valley and the Humboldt Range. Section sizes in the 34-lot subdivision range from 1.7ha to 3.5ha. About 12 have sold for prices from $1.25 million to $2.45 million - all to buyers from the US, Britain, Hong Kong, Australia, Switzerland and Singapore.
The Aro Ha health and wellness retreat at the southern end has quickly established itself as a luxury retreat. High-spec homes are being built on other sections in the gated community. Residents share a "clubhouse", gym and spa and a small lake created for fishing and kayaking. Extensive native plantings promise privacy and restore ecological diversity.
Glenorchy locals say while exclusive, Wyuna has created work. Most owners guard their privacy but some drop in to Glenorchy for supplies.
The series
• Saturday: Swiss-based Mutt Lange buys up four high country stations for ecological restoration.
• Today: Foreign investors and tourists march on Glenorchy.
• American billionaires Paul and Debbi Brainerd have bought up Glenorchy campground and surrounding land.
• Some locals fear the campground redevelopment's effect on accommodation and retail businesses and the future of the town.
• The purchases needed Overseas Investment Office approval which wasn't obtained.
• Retrospective approval is being sought.
• Read 'Can foreign owners save our country?' - the first story in this series here: tinyurl.com/nzforeignowned
The team has also faced criticism for a controversial try against Nelson College.
