Profile poles finally up for billionaire Peter Thiel's proposed Wanaka house

Poles on a knoll (circled) at Peter Thiel's property near Damper Bay, Wanaka, as viewed from Mt Aspiring Rd. Photo / Marjorie Cook

Profile poles have been put up at the site of Peter Thiel's future Wanaka lakefront holiday home this week, after a complaint to the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

Upper Clutha Environment Society secretary Julian Haworth said he complained because, without the poles, the public could not complete site assessments and resource consent submissions before the October 14 deadline.

Council communications spokesman Sam White confirmed most of the poles went up on Wednesday.

Because rain was washing wet paint off, the rest went up on Friday.

The Upper Clutha Environmental Society is opposing the resource consent application.

It was lodged with the council in late August by Second Star Ltd, a company associated with the US tech businessman and his partner, Matt Danzeisen.

Second Star asked that the application be publicly notified.

The documents include plans for a long, low house with a grass roof, merging into the landscape.

The designers are Kengo Kuma & Associates, who were the architects of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium.

Haworth said the poles should have gone up straight after the consent application was lodged.

When he went to the site near Damper Bay on Wednesday he did not see any poles up.

''There were half a dozen poles lying randomly around the site but I think they were from a previous application.''

Haworth said the poles were meant to help the public form a view about a development's environmental effects.

Peter Thiel is co-founder of PayPal, as well as the first outside investor in Facebook. Photo / Getty Images

''The buildings are one-third of a kilometre long — 330m — and we need the poles to be able to appreciate that,'' he said.

Haworth said the council's planning department had told him the timing of putting up the poles was ''due to the sheer number'' requested by the council landscape architect.

He had been reassured the poles would be up in time for a visit by the council hearing panel but Haworth said it was not just commissioners who needed to see the poles.

The landscape architect's request for so many poles added weight to the argument the development was big and complex and the public needed time to consider it, he said.