I’ve noticed a few construction sites as I head around the city that I know are (or look like) new parking building being built. They are:
- The large parking building being built on Quay Street
- A small building at the intersection of Dominion and View Roads
- A three or four story building on the site of the University of Auckland’s Medical School across the Auckland Hospital
Is any one able to shed a bit of light on these sites?
If all three are parking buildings I have to say it is a bit of a blow for public transport. Consider the locations:
- The Quay Street parking building is within walking distance of the Britomart interchange
- Dominion Road is the busiest bus route in the city
- The University of Auckland Medical School is on the central connector
Recently a very large parking building was built at Mt Eden Prison, a few hundred metres from the new Grafton station.
Maybe we haven’t got over that 1950’s parking thinking yet.
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I understand The med school on will only have a few basement levels of car parking, the rest i understand will be people orientated space. There is a lot of removal of surface parking on that sight (due to the building you speak of plus another large building on the opposite side of the site (near park ave). Im not sure how large the net gain (or loss) in parking will be.
Not sure about the Dom Road site, but the university IS getting a new parking building (domain side of road):
http://www.aucklandtrains.co.nz/2010/07/22/relief-for-auck-hospital-parking/
The medical school to my understanding is also getting some basement parking (grafton side of road), but the building itself is an extension of the school, not a car park.
The link you provided is for the new hospital car park. I understand this is unrelated to the medschool and UOA.
I have not said anything to the contrary.
“Not sure about the Dom Road site, but the university IS getting a new parking building (domain side of road):”
Could you clarify the location of this new university car parking please. The link you provided was for hospital parking not university parking. Is there a carpark sharing agreement I am not aware of?
Okay, I understand the misstatement I made now. I do not normally make a big difference between the two, because without the hospital, there would be no medical school there.
I too noticed the Dom Rd site. This was a former car parking lot. Under the RMA, if you get permission to demolish a building from Auckland Council (very easy to get), and don’t put up anything, and use the site as a car park, then after a couple of years (5 I think), you are able to claim existing use rights and build a car park.
It wasn’t a carpark, rather it was a used car lot. I can’t imagine that there would be much call for a carpark around there, it’s mainly light industrial with a few apartments (which already have carparks) and an Asian supermarket. The more I look at it the more it’s starting to look like an apartment with carparking.
Chris, I doubt it works that way. As per my understanding, even a level at grade car park needs resource consent to start with. And while having an existing car park on the site gives you “a leg up” when applying for a larger parking building, its far from that casual to get permission for a new car park building (wheter it is still too likely to be granted permission eventually, in a city with such copious amounts of parking, is a different matter).
In order to create that basic at grade car park, you need land. In the city, buildings are sometimes demolished to create that car park as the underlying return on the land is higher from car parking than the building itself.
Demolition consent is relatively easy to get, and importantly, there is no connection between a demolition consent and any consent for future construction on the site. In other words, consent to demolish can be given without any requirement to obtain consent for replacement building. The building gets demolished. The land owner may have promised to apply for a consent for a replacement building, but decides instead to apply for a consent for car parking (which is allowable) – something that is relatively easy to get. He gets that consent, and the car park starts operation. After a period of time (5 years or so), the developer can say, well, I’d like to intensify the use and put up a multi-storey parking building – the activity on that land (car parking) has been established by use over time. He would like to intensify because it returns more money. The consent is granted because the use has been established over a period of time, which is a relatively easy thing to do.
This situation occurred on a parking building on Commerce St, in the city. It occurred for Metropolitan rentals on Dominion Rd. It could occur for the ex-Coolangatta site on Remuera Rd.
Additional carparking buildings going in around the city are 162 Victoria Street, around 900 car parks I think, Rhubarb Lane on Wellesley Street East with 3000 odd car parks, there’s also the site down on Mahuhu Crescent with around 150 carparks, the site on the corner of Halsley and Victoria Street West plan to put in an additional 60 parks when they redevelop the site.
There are a bunch of other development sites on hold such as the Stanley on Albert street, the Antipodean on Queen Street both of which plan to build 300 odd carparks each.
For a complete rundown of how we ended up with the Quay street debacle read Joel’s post here http://joelcayford.blogspot.com/2010/01/coopers-co-dull-waterfront-with-more.html
The Med School site has undergroun carparking for staff, I don’t think it’s significantly more than was there previous at ground level. This is a different development to the planned carparking building with 400 carparks.
Those are what I can think of off the top of my head, and basically they all come down to the fact that building a carparking building will remain a money maker until the council charges a development levy for every new carpark that is built.
Its shit like what Coopers is now doing to Britomart that makes me want to leave this country and never come back.
They’ve turned what was an opportunity for an awesome small CBD park and buildings that fit with the nature of the area into:
1. The Westpac Building – which looks like it should have come out of communist Russia circa 1965, and has in turn made the streets that run alongside into dark, dank alleyways.
2. The proposed building which is essentially the same as the Westpac building where they currently have at-grade parking.
3. The blight which will be that 5 story carpark.
Its a crying shame in an area which had so much initial promise.
I don’t have a problem with the Westpac building… It doesnt look too bad to me and I’m a big fan of intensifying around train stations. the second building ( planned for between Britomart and the Westpac), i’m not so sure about. That area should be a public space with grass, trees, and perhaps some 1 story stalls stalls along the pedestrian mall. We don’t want to make this postentially important future pedestrian link a completely closed in tunnel which is undesirable and cold- going through one building is interesting, but two is a bit much. I also notice on the Britomart animation videos I have seen that there are no conical skylights through the site, which are there currently- these provide an important light source for (almost too dark) station, and are aesthetically an intergral part of the design
I agree, I don’t mind the Westpac building but I don’t think we should build anything on the land currently used as car parking next to the skylights. Personally I think we should turn those streets back into a bus depot and consolidate all of the bus stops in the area there as they are currently scattered all over the place.
Thing is being the CBD it already is rather intense development, and unless you include the vast expanse of concrete with buses running through it that is the former QE2 square then the closest green space would either be Victoria Park or Albert Park.
Basically its almost like that instead of doing what was planned (restoration, good public space), you’ve not essentially got the same plans that Les Mills was trying to ram through.
Worst of the worst though has to be the carpark. What an absolute waste of prime waterfront real estate.
I have noticed quite a few sites (one on New North Road) and another on Dominion (maybe the same one you’re talking about Jeremy?) which have very, very deep foundations.
I assume these are apartment buildings which are having lots of carparks put in at the base. While this sucks it’s still a bit better than having the carparks at ground level as we used to do in the good old days…
I have no issue with developers building as many car parks as they want below ground level, it increases the cost of the construction but can have a positive side effect. We used to have an apartment on Symonds St up by Khyber Pass. At the ground level there was shops and above that apartments however the site sloped away and it was easy for the developer put carparking below the road level. We had two carparks but only had one car that we used on weekends etc. during the week we would walk to work or catch PT but it gave us flexibility. It also meant that if we wanted to have a friend over they could park in our spare space as there was no free parking in the area. I guess my point is that even though there is parking available it doesn’t mean the tenants will drive to work every day. In the Dom Rd case it is quite likely that most would just go and catch a bus because it is a lot cheaper than paying for parking but it is useful for them to have space for a car should they need one.
Don’t forget Middlemore Hospital is currently adding on an extra level the carpark off Orakau Rd……..right next to Middlemore Station!
This is taxpayers health dollars being wasted on carparks!
@JBR, but where do we park if we need to take a kids to the Emergency ward if we live anywhere east from Middlemore? I will not sit for hours in a bus to try and get there from Howick, Botany, Flatbush, etc
It is great if you live close to the Southern railway line, but until they build the Howick/Botany line I will stick to my car.
Interesting info… We normally try to give news and frame debate but this has been good so far…
So it seems, the Medical School development is primarily just an expansion of the school and no one is really sure exactly what’s happening on Dom Rd..?
I understand from the person next door that the corner of Dominion & George St is not a parking building.
I think its important not to get too purest about parking. Its all very well restricting on street parking and parking provided as part of a development, but what happens if even after all that people still drive to work?
I think the step change we need is to get rid of onsite parking requirements at development stage and allow parking buildings to be built as and when required. They are purely responding to parking demand. As the public transport system gets better there will be less demand for the parking buildings and they can be converted into other uses.
@Scott M – most Australian cities charge developer levies for each space that a new building provides. There needs to be some stick with the PT carrot and letting the market decide is what has lead to many American cities literally being a sea of carparks.
Well removing on site parking requirements would go a great way towards reducing sprawl and would allow more compact (and therefore walking and PT friendly cities). The point I was making is that if people are still driving, even to ares with excellent PT, we should provide for that parking in compact, multi-level parking buildings – those people weren’t going to take PT anyway.