Calder Stewart has told a hearing in Invercargill that height restrictions sought around the Awarua Satellite Ground Station could strip $3 billion from the southern economy over 14 years if they derail its plans for a silicon smelter and wind farm.
SpaceOps NZ, the satellite communication and launch support company owned by regional development agency Great South, has lodged a Notice of Requirement under the Resource Management Act seeking restrictions on building heights around its ground station on the outskirts of Invercargill, so the station keeps a clear view of the sky. SpaceOps was approved as a requiring authority in March last year, giving it the legal power to designate land for network utilities.
The family-owned construction group is the biggest landowner affected. It bought 515 hectares in the Awarua Quadrant from the Invercargill City Council in 2021, after the council zoned the 590-hectare area for large-scale industrial development, and describes the site as Australasia's largest industrial development. Its plans include a silicon smelter and a seven-turbine wind farm with blade tips up to 200 metres above the ground.
Economist's modelling
Independent economist John Ballingall, giving evidence for the Stewart family, modelled a scenario in which neither the smelter nor the wind farm proceeded because of the designation. He estimated the region would forgo $3 billion in GDP across Otago and Southland between 2027 and 2040, along with 990 jobs and $1.84 billion in household spending, with wages 2.8 per cent lower by 2040 than they would otherwise have been.
Mr Ballingall said the result would be a clear economic loss for the regional economy, and argued SpaceOps had produced no quantitative economic evidence of its own.
SpaceOps' solicitor, Alex Dunn, accepted there could be some effect but said the modelling did not show the designation would cause that outcome. "It doesn't prove that the [Notice of Requirement] would cause that scenario to happen," he said. The extent of the designation and its height limits, he argued, did not amount to prohibiting industrial development or losing it altogether.
Hearing adjourned
Commissioner John Maassen adjourned the hearing on Wednesday to await a joint memorandum from counsel setting out where the parties agree and where they differ. He urged them to keep negotiating, thanked both sides for the respectful way the issues had been argued, and made clear he would rule if a settlement proved impossible: "if I have to decide it, I will."
No decision has been issued, and the outcome matters well beyond the two parties. Southland has promoted the Awarua ground station as a flagship of its space sector at the same time as the city council has zoned the surrounding land for large-scale industry. The hearing has brought those two ambitions into direct conflict, and the gap between a $3 billion loss and a manageable constraint is now the question the commissioner, or the parties themselves, must settle.
