Last week marked the 50th edition of the Queenstown.com Weekly, and here's hoping that this continues far into the future. In this week's edition, we announce the winner of the Queenstown.com Monopoly Competition as voting draws to a close this week. Also, we highlight the recycling efforts of Queenstown as a whole, we detail the latest news from the council, and briefly talk about the local housing market and the cracks that are starting to appear.
Doing our bit to promote Queenstown's chances of gaining a top 20 spot on the world edition of the upcoming Monopoly board, we ran a competition that invited entrants to go into the draw to win the following:
- New World vouchers - $100
- Tardis Bartab - $100
- Fergburger vouchers - $30
- Barup Bartab - $48
- HQWifi Wireless voucher - $50
The combined prize pool has a value of $328, and it's my pleasure to announce Rebekah Gray as the winner. If you are reading this Rebekah, I've emailed you the instructions on how to claim your prize. Do be quick though, as one of the conditions was for us to witness you place a vote for Queenstown, and voting closes in 4 days. Thanks to all those that entered and that voted for Queenstown. The team at Monopoly have now removed the leader board to add some mystery over the final days, but please don't forget to vote, and keep hassling your friends to do the same.
But for my part I'd fill in the odd gully or valley and convert it into a recreational reserve. - Warren Cooper
We publish almost every press release that is sent to us by the Queenstown Lakes District Council and last week, we were sent the updated recycling statistics. The new recycling centre in Frankton processed a whopping 347 tonnes in January alone. If Warren Cooper had any say in that, it would all be lining the bottom of some tranquil valley, hidden from view and leeching pollution into the water table, while people play sport on it. I've already detailed the benefits of recycling in a previous edition of this weekly, and it's awesome to see that Queenstown has embraced this idea.
In other news coming from the council, submissions are now invited for a revamped Queenstown playground to replace the aging one next to the Bath House Cafe. The budget has been set at $500,000, and those of you with ideas and suggestions are invited to let the council know. Contact details have been provided in that press release.
Today's headline in the Queenstown section of news on Stuff.co.nz read: "Home affordability drops through floor". This is based on the a report initiated by the Southland Times with help from the interest.co.nz website. The average house price would now account for 122.7 percent of the median yearly income to pay the mortgage. I've also noticed two mortgagee sales in Queenstown in the last two weeks, as these record repayments start to have a negative effect. Will these figures continue to increase or are we heading towards a plateauing of local property prices.
I'll leave you with that for this week, so until next Monday, take care Queenstown!
Nathan - Queenstown.com Editor.
