The Hāwea Community Association (HCA) has had a busy few years, and the past week has been no different, holding two significant events and assessing a second supermarket proposal for the community.

The HCA held its AGM last weekend (Saturday November 6) and today it will host a 'Hāwea Visioning Forum', hosted by Shaping Our Future (SOF).

The forum aims to identify a set of key priority issues that need to be addressed in the short to medium term but will also look further to the future of Hāwea in 30, 40 or 50 years’ time. 

“The ideal outcome would be to have a clear idea of what the values and the vision are for our community,” HCA chair Cherilyn Walthew said.

The association expects a hot topic at today’s event to be a resource consent application from Project H Ltd to construct a SuperValue (Woolworths) supermarket on land between Bodkin Street and Parry Crescent, close to the existing Hāwea Store and Kitchen - and neighbouring another proposed commercial development for which resource consent has been sought.

Lake Hāwea Holdings Ltd, owned by Wanaka businessman Matt Laming, submitted a resource consent application late last year for a complex of commercial, retail, office and visitor accommodation use, including a restaurant, cinema, retail spaces, supermarket, medical clinic and visitor accommodation.

Read more: Big changes proposed for Lake Hāwea commercial zone

Project H Ltd spokesperson Ray McLeod, a long term Lake Hāwea property owner and part time resident, told the Wānaka App he bought the land in 2004 with the intention to create something which worked for the community

“We’re pretty excited. We worked really, really hard on the design,” he said. “We wanted the building to look right… we didn’t want to plonk downtown Wānaka in Hāwea.”

The proposal is compliant in all respects apart from the size, which exceeds the “permitted activity” size of 300sqm by 150sqm.

Ray said the project team has run a scale model for the space (independently of Woolworths) and believe the larger scale is more appropriate.

“We’re fronting it; we’ve said it doesn’t work any smaller than that for the community or the investors,” he said.

Ray said the design is “basically self contained”, with car parking, a service lane, and allowing flexibility to work with neighbouring developments. 

He said Project H Ltd has previously spoken to Matt Laming about the proposals, and remains “happy to reopen discussions”.

The SOF session will take place at the Lake Hāwea Community Centre from 9am to 2pm today (Saturday November 13).

Cherilyn said the HCA is still looking for new office bearers: chair, vice-chair, and an additional person for the association’s communication team. 

IMAGE: Supplied