Setback for Shania
2005-05-18 10:56
Wellington - Singer Shania Twain's plan to build a mansion on her New Zealand sheep farm has run into planning problems because the complex would not be in harmony with the surrounding landscape, officials said on Wednesday.
The country music star and husband Robert "Mutt" Lange Twain have applied for approval to build a house with attached garage, two guest cottages and ancillary structures on their alpine ranch, Motatapu Station, on South Island.
Last year the pair won approval to lease 24 700 hectares of rugged and scenic farmland - half of it above the snow line - for 33 years with automatic renewal rights.
The pastoral leasehold farm land near the tourist town of Wanaka cost them NZ$21.4m New Zealand.
Plans show the couple want to build a diamond-shaped residential complex high in the Motatapu Valley, which locals say will be visible for miles.
The region's planner and landscape architect have both advised the local council that the building should not be permitted.
"People slamming mansions onto leasehold land" should be stopped, Upper Clutha Environmental Society President Julian Hayward said.
"I don't think Shania Twain will be using this mansion for farming," he said.
"It doesn't matter that it's Shania Twain. We get a lot of people trying to put buildings in inappropriate locations and we object to all of them," he told National Radio.
Consultant planner Andrew Henderson said in his report that Twain's proposed dwelling "is not considered to be in harmony with the line and form of the landscape".
He recommended that the council reject the building consent application when it's heard next week.
Twain's planning and legal advisers did not return calls seeking comment.
Wanaka is 808 kilometres southwest of the capital, Wellington.
- AP