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Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Farewell to a friend and colleague
She'll take the high road for a bit, and we'll take the low road. But we'll be together again, and our love will get us through to that day. That's a paraphrasing of words written by former Allied Press journalist, Louise Scott-Gallagher, 44, who died at home surrounded by family in Queenstown on May 20. Speaking at Louise's funeral service at the Queenstown Polo Ground on Sunday, friend Sarah Taylor recounted how Louise had comforted her with those words after the death of Sarah's mother. Now they offer comfort to her former colleagues at the Mountain Scene and Otago Daily Times. They will also comfort the many Queenstowners who were touched by Louise's warmth, empathy and sense of fun — and her lilting Northern Irish accent — as she went about her work as a reporter here between 2014 and 2018. Although she took up the regions editor role with the ODT in Dunedin, she continued to spend much of her time in the resort. That was because by then she was sharing a home with her future husband, Craig Gallagher — they'd met in 2017 when she interviewed him in his capacity as co-organiser of charity boxing event Thriller in the Chiller. The girl from Gillygooley, County Tyrone, had found her forever home in Queenstown with her dream man. However, in 2023, their lives were turned upside down. After finding a lump on her breast while 11 weeks' pregnant with their daughter, Lily, Louise was diagnosed with cancer. Despite an immediate mastectomy and subsequent chemotherapy, she was told last April the tumours in her body had grown and multiplied. Her overriding wish became to live long enough for Lily to remember her. She did not want her tragic family history to repeat. Her mother, Anne, had died from breast cancer at 34 — leaving four young children behind — when Louise was 3 years old. Louise and Craig began planning a wedding for later this year, but after learning three weeks ago that her treatment wasn't working, they brought those plans forward. They were married at home, in front of family and close friends, last Monday. Louise passed away peacefully the next day. At Sunday's celebration of Louise's life, friend Josie Spillane described her as the "best mum on the planet" and a woman who lived for her family and friends. A lover of parties and banter, she was a "singer, always the first on the dance floor, and often the last one home". A collector of friends around the world, her exceptional empathy meant she was the first to provide comfort and care at times of need. A prolific cook, she was a "feeder — that's how she showed love". The doting aunt of eight also showered affection on the children of friends and colleagues. Spillane recounted what Louise had written about her predicament a year ago. "I promise I'm going to confront this head-on, but while I'm doing that, I'm going to make every second count with Craig and Lily. "I live in hope, and genuinely believe a positive attitude and outlook can help, but most of all, I live every day surrounded by love and surrounded by my friends and extended families at home and our Kiwi families here in New Zealand. "They give us so much support, and I thank you for everyone."
Otago Daily Times
03-05-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Plans for 100 units above retail precinct
Queenstown developer Kurt Gibbons is planning to build another 100 one-bedroom residential units — 86 of them A-frames — on land above the Country Lane retail precinct. Last November, Mountain Scene revealed Gibbons had purchased the elevated block, accessed via Hansen Rd, on which he was looking at affordable housing options. Now HansenQT Ltd, of which he's the sole director, has applied for land use consent for the 'The Crest Chalets', which will also include 14 'hillside cabins' and six business units on 3.1446ha at 52 Hansen Rd. If approved, it'll be the first consented within the Frankton North structure plan — according to the development's website, completion's expected in summer 2027. The application notes the development's non-complying, with breaches to density, height controls, earthworks — 26,100cum of cut and 29,700cum of fill's planned, along with retaining walls up to 3.5m high — and transport standards. Gibbons, who declined to comment, also wants 75 of the units to have residential visitor accommodation enabled for up to 180 days a year to provide "diversification for sale". "The flexibility to use the units for visitor accommodation enhances their appeal to prospective buyers, while also allowing for a mix of uses, such as housing for owners, seasonal workers, students or local residents." The A-frame detached units will have a self-contained kitchen, dining and living on the ground floor and a mezzanine bedroom, with an outdoor living area and ground floor area of 50 square metres. They'll extend above the 8m height limit by a maximum of 1.05m from original ground level. The one-bed hillside cabins will have a ground floor area of 45sqm and include a patio. Gibbons' application says the units provide for smaller households, first-home buyers, and enable more affordable rental accommodation. The commercial units will have ground floor areas ranging from 806sqm to 1000sqm, with mezzanine levels. While they'll be 8.5m above "finished" ground level, when measured from existing ground level, four will exceed the 12m permitted height plane — the largest infringement's projected to be 2.4m above that. A total of 101 carparks are planned — two access points, connected by private road, will service the residential development, with another private access road for the commercial development. If approved, Hansen Rd will also need to be upgraded. In terms of infrastructure, because there's currently no reticulated infrastructure for stormwater, wastewater or water supply immediately available within, or adjacent to, the site, it's proposed to extend the nearest existing services, within the lower portion of Hansen Rd, to supply The Crest. Seeking for the application to be processed non-notified, Gibbons submits the development fits within the character of the area, and any adverse effects are "less than minor". "There is not considered to be anything about the proposed intensity of the development, nor its scale, form or appearance, that is considered to give rise to special circumstances. "It is considered that there is nothing noteworthy about the proposal." Gibbons, a former Aucklander who recently sold a Herne Bay supermarket he built with rich-lister business partner Ben Cook, and his waterfront Herne Bay mansion, has two other developments on the go in Queenstown. He's completed stage one of Five Mile Villas — in all, that'll comprise 225 two-level, two-bedroom units on the Frankton Flats, which start from $869,000 — and is marketing Lakehouse Villas. That's an exclusive 63-unit development, at 633 Frankton Rd, ranging in price from $699,000 for a two-bedroom dual key studio to a four-bed lakehouse priced from $2.35million — all of which have consent for year-round visitor accommodation. — Tracey Roxburgh Work to start on complex The hammer's about to go down at last on the first stages of a huge worker accommodation complex in Queenstown's Frankton area. It's being built by Aussie developer No.1 Hansen Road on the corner of Hansen Rd and the state highway, where it's already opened a car storage building called The Motor Club. The first stage comprises 32 four-bedroom apartments on two levels above this building. Company director Eli Shellim says they received resource consent two weeks ago, three months longer than anticipated. "We are very grateful this milestone is now behind us." Subject to building consent — being lodged mid-month — he's hoping construction will start mid next month. "The building timeframe is estimated to be 10 months." Shellim says their consultants are also working at speed to lodge a building consent application for the first two of eight surrounding blocks that'll eventually house 710 local employees in 476 rooms. These two five-level buildings, immediately east of The Motor Club, will yield 193 staff accommodation apartments. "This was approved by the government last year, hence does not need a resource consent. "We are looking to commence construction on both buildings by mid-July — the building timeframe for these is 13 months." — Philip Chandler
Otago Daily Times
25-04-2025
- Otago Daily Times
DIY course a world-beater
When Queenstown Golf Club president John Grant's wife June teed off to officially open the Kelvin Heights course 50 years ago this month, it marked the completion of arguably the resort's biggest DIY project. Their son Bill, the club's longest-serving member, joining in 1958, says his dad and fellow Skyline director Hylton Hensman had been at a board meeting at Skyline's Bob's Peak gondola complex. "Hylton was looking out the window and he said to dad, 'that [peninsula] would be a great place to put a golf course, wouldn't it?' "And that's how it all started." In 1968, visiting English course designer Commander John Harris examined four sites for an 18-holer — the club already had a nine-holer in Frankton — and concluded Kelvin Peninsula, "from as thorough an inspection as the jungle permitted ... if it is possible to use this area for golf, I can say that it will become one of the most scenic golf courses in the world". Bill says Harris "wanted, like, $10,000 to design the course, and they couldn't afford it". Instead, Hensman designed the course using a contour map. Building the course, Bill notes, was "a huge mission because of the terrain we were working with". "The bracken and scrub was cleared and rocks were removed and dumped in the deep gullies before they were levelled and grassed," George Singleton's history of the peninsula states. Some 50 to 60 truckloads of soil, for example, were dumped on top of beach gravel on the fifth fairway. John Grant and Hensman did a lot of the work themselves, providing their own machinery, and Bill helped, between farming duties, for the princely sum of $1 an hour initially. In one weekend, trucks from all over town carted gravel for the base of all the greens. Many locals also cleared stones from fairways as construction neared completion. According to a budget in 1969, the course build was estimated to cost $102,500, but by 1975 Mountain Scene reported it had cost about $300,000. Club members raised about $50,000 in debentures, council gave $10,000 over five years and neighbour Frank Mee gifted a section which sold for $10,000. To put it in perspective, club GM Andrew Bell says that $102,500 is $1.6million today, "which is one fairway at [Queenstown's] Jack's Point". Bill: "One of the pubs wanted to give us $10,000 and take out naming rights but they said 'no'." Bell says once the course opened the committee each month had a lucky draw to see whose debenture got paid — "John Grant got drawn out and he said, 'pay someone else"'. The club leases the course off council which was vested the land by the Crown in 1929. "The club, as custodians, has turned it into probably one of the best parks in New Zealand. "We are actually the biggest park in Queenstown, and as Queenstown gets bigger and we want green space, this is one of the few protected green space areas." And, just as the founders foresaw, it's become comfortably one of the resort's leading visitor attractions. "Unlike an Auckland course that might be doing 70,000 rounds because they've got warm weather all year, we're sort of 30,000 to 35,000 rounds — 50/50 split between visitors and members."
