In this recent post I questioned whether the Draft Auckland Spatial Plan had been realistic about where it expects urban intensification to occur over the next 20-30 years. There is much focus in the plan on intensification occurring in far flung parts of the city like Kelston, Glendene, Manurewa, Orewa and Glenfield, yet not necessarily much analysis of whether it actually makes financial sense for intensification to occur in those areas. Looking at land values around Auckland tends to suggest that intensification is actually most likely to occur in the inner suburbs and in coastal areas. 
When you put the above map together with an analysis of where we want to avoid large-scale redevelopment due to heritage concerns and also focus intensification on where we have good public transport options, we actually end up with some fairly limited opportunities. At least in the short term, until we build the City Rail Link tunnel and open up the whole inner-west area from Mt Eden to New Lynn when it becomes under 20 minutes for the train to get into town.
One particularly obvious development area in the short-term seems to be along the Great North Road ridge, between Karangahape Road and Grey Lynn shops. The area shown in the map below:
Because the road runs along a ridge, higher-rise development here is unlikely to block the views of others, while also offering those on the higher floors a pretty impressive view in either direction across the city. Great North Road in this vicinity also enjoys a huge number of buses, pretty much every bus from West Auckland trundles along here. And finally, generally what redevelopment in this area would replace is hardly anything to write home about: a bunch of car-yards being the most prominent land-use:
Over the past few years we have started to see a few developments along this stretch of road. Perhaps the most obvious being at the corner of Great North Road and Bond Street:
Council data shows that this building has 39 units on about 2,100 square metres of land – around 53 square metres of site per unit. When you look at the size of this site compared to what might be thought of as the whole development corridor you can start to appreciate its potential, and that’s without allowing higher height limits, which may well be appropriate here as long as there were good urban design principles adhered to:
I would personally make intensification here a much higher priority than developing satellite centres in Warkworth, or trying to get intensification to happen way out west or way down south where it just won’t make financial sense for developers. Roll it into a nice streetscape package for Great North Road through here too, which currently looks pretty ghastly.
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The building you show looks like a good one – though it really struggled initially, especially for the ground floor retail / service tenancies. Hope they are doing better now (after all, even Ironbank on K’Road, with all it’s architecture prizes and prime location, did struggle to find tenants).
But that’s where a great urban (as opposed to just traffic mover) street would help. Dreaming of a light rail system is a bit early at this stage, but one day I hope we see one again through here.
Where do you suggest they put the new schools that will be required if you intensify that area ? Western Bays schools are bursting at the seams already.
The schools will need to build up. And they will need to reduce the green space they provide – possibly look to consolidate sporting facilities with other schools/community activities in the surrounding area.
Indeed, there are plenty of schools in Manhattan for example.
We may have to look at building multi-storey schools, like every big city does. And have some sports occur in gymnasiums / sports halls, rather than outside?
Instead, at the moment what we still do is build more car parking when a school grows! Even if it displaces a nearby Kindy (as recently happened in Point Chev).
No reason we cant have something as simple as two story classrooms, or classrooms above the hall, or admin offices upstairs. My old primary school went through a growth spurt and they responded by covering the one proper rectangular sports field in half a dozen separate classrooms, so there was only one smallish grassy area left. Crazy, why not build a single building with six classes on the small area and keep the playing field…
Presumably because they couldn’t shut down the school and demolish the single story classrooms in order to build the double story ones.
There are also funding issues with the way the ministry funds additional classrooms, something to do with double story classrooms not simply costing twice the price of a single story ie: more engineering, fire exits, sound proofing etc.
GT, I don’t see how a from-scratch multi-storey classroom block could cost more than an equivalent number of single-storey blocks, especially once you account for the land costs. It’s nonsensical to think otherwise.
Also, the cost of stronger foundations for a single multi-storey building has to be cheaper than the cost of digging foundations for a heap of single-storey buildings, likewise the costs of roofing (one vs many), utilities (a single, larger pipe vs many smaller ones, and a single, larger electrical feed vs many smaller ones), climate management (it’s much more efficient to heat/cool a single large building than many smaller ones, both for capital and for operational expense), and on it goes.
GT – They are current almost completely rebuilding Avondale College at the moment, it is going from single story class buildings (some of which are close to 70 years old) and in their place they are putting multi-story buildings so there must be some benefits from doing it. They are also doing the upgrade while the school is operating.
They were possibly all pre-fabs?
I know at my high school there was a big sandpit around the back of one of the blocks where it was supposed to be getting extended until the government cut funding. Instead we had a truckload of single classroom pre-fab blocks all over the place.
The Trickster – Some are prefabs but many of the buildings being replaced are permanent ones
I would also imagine that this type of development would appeal more to singles, couples and other childless households which are a growing demographic. The impact on schools would no doubt be lower relative to the population increase.
Probably, but not exclusively, especially if larger floorplate apartments are available. Don’t under estimate the pulling power of a good school in an area either. Every 20-25 children requires a new classroom.
That area also has Newton School down in Arch Hill and Grey Lynn school just past the Surrey Crescent shop. Both of those could be expanded “upwards”.
Also Richmond Road Primary and Freeman’s Bay Primary.
As you point out this is already happening and is certain to continue. The return on a developed block would be way above the return on a car yard I would have thought, especially given the house prices in the general area. The key would be to ensure high quality co-ordinated development- so far the blocks that have gone up are pretty average. Developing Great North Road would certainly help.
The north-eastern (Scanlan St to Ponsonby Road) part of this area also seems to offer potential- currently a mis-mash of low rise commercial space, some of which has already been converted to residential (and plenty of which seems to be vacant). Progressive’s development of the Soho hole is likely to include some residential (and you would assume free up the Foodtown site at the other end of Williamson Ave).
And forget the bus, this is an area where the drive, park and walk crowd look to park. Just walk.
I wish this would happen more! Great North Road is so bleak right now. How many car yards does the inner city really need? The Bond Street development did struggle but, it did also open just at the height of the recession. I also think there would be HUGE demand from families who want to bring their kids up in the (vaguely) central city but can’t afford the price of a detached house in Grey Lynn/Westmere/Kingsland. There is a lot of green space in that area (especially Grey Lynn Park) and so you don’t really need your own garden.
This looks like a great spot. What would the height limit be here? 3-4 storeys? Raising it to 8 – 12 storeys would seem appropriate for what is a city fringe area.
I think you may wish to be careful about casting shadows onto Arch Hill, but on the northern side of the road I think an increased height limit would definitely be appropriate.
Yes the northern [Grey Lynn] side is the jem… views, sun and away from street noise and southerlies on the right side of the building. Also Grey Lynn not Arch Hill as a price comparison. Should be able to build as high as the market can bear…. Land wasted as car sales yards is just another example of the hidden costs to the economy of auto-dependency…
This is exactly the sort of place that AC should be making sure its planning regs are not holding up the market. Economist Edward Glaeser in Triumph of the City makes a convincing case for the 20th C flight to the suburbs on economic rationalism grounds, not simply because of desire for detached housing and grass per se, and suggests that the reverse can [and should] be achieved through the same means. People in AK have been moving back and at higher densities over the last twenty years and I am sure this can be accelerated simply by removing the planning regs and subsidies that promote new exurbia [sprawl]. The market is there, but we have the reverse incentives at the supply end. Developers will develope.
No problem with schools: AGGs is a great school [I have one daughter there], across the bridge is Kowhai Int, down the Rd is St Josephs… Senior College in the city, Grey Lynn primary used to be struggling for roll [?} Richmond Rd is grand….. Western Springs, MAGS isn’t too far away…. Ponsonby Intermediate… I can remember when they were threatening to close that due to low enrollments; managing changes in demographics is something the Min of Ed faces all the time, and deals well with.
from my experience the Min of Education does deal with population changes all the time, but not very well. North wellington and Albany are areas I have lived in that have had major issues.
True, but raising the height of the Northern side buildings would cast GNR into shadow the entire day…
I don’t necessarily think that a few shadows on the street is a huge problem. Queen Street still gets sun quite a few hours of the day. The streets of Manhattan still get sun even though they have really really high buildings. The trick is to ensure that the buildings aren’t too bulky on their upper floors, so that the shifting sun doesn’t get hidden behind any particular building for too long.
You’re a little out of touch on the school front Patrick, the picture has changed dramatically for some of those schools you mention.
And the Min has by their own admission handled the roll growth in Western Bays poorly over the last few years.
OK, but I have three children and two nieces in four schools here and have witnessed the schools grow in both roll and performance over the last decade. I have no special knowledge nor involvement in the planning of these schools so this all could be the take up of excess capacity as a result of the area having to cater for bigger rolls when the area was poorer and more densely occupied. There was also much less flight to Remuera academies in the past too so perhaps this takes pressure off the rolls as well as clogging Ak’s roads with German SUVs.
Certainly the primary schools were at a low ebb when our kids entered them at the turn of the century, and as I say Pons Intermediate was nearly closed, as there was a gap in the Int. demographic between the PI community leaving the new gentrifiers breeding.
Is it your view that this phase is now over and the area needs new capacity?
Have a look on Facebook at the Save Pt Chev Kindergarden page and the associated Pt Chev Eductaion Action Group (or something like that) page, there is a link to the recent study (late 2010) commissioned by the Ministry on roll growth in western bays.
It’s a very long report but the guts of it is they *think* the current schools can just about cope without a new school being required by *managing* their assets but the situation will need to be monitored carefully for any change. Intensification along the Grey Lynn ridge or Pt Chev areas like this would tip the balance I suspect.
The *bubble* is currently at year 1/2 ages and shifts in next 5 years to int/high school . Western Springs college has something like 25% growth estimated between 2015 and 2020. There is a proposal before cabinet at the moment for large scale construction at Western Springs college.
Pt Chev primary is one of the worst effected because of the smaller physical footprint of the school (16 h vs avg 2.5 h for a primary school)
Sounds good, I don’t see this as any kind of problem and still way way cheaper and preferable to building new schools out in the newly ruined countryside. Springs could go a re-vamp.
I note the car sales yards seem to have spent a considerable amount of effort in the last few years redeveloping their premises. I doubt they’ll want to shift anytime soon. That said i agree with the logic. Given the soundness of the argument, one would expect private developers to take care of this region so long as council impediments are minimal.
Council “stimulus” in other parts of the city could be desirable as part of a greater Auckland rejuvenation effort. Moreover, there is the risk that the headlining council proposals be seen as overly CBD & inner-suburb centric.
The Giltrap empire is certainly pretty set in the eastern part of this area and have spent a fortune on things like the Audi Gallery, but there hasn’t been any redevelopment in the yards to the west who would be no lose to the area at all.
Meh, some mostly single-storey car yard buildings, even with fancy showrooms, aren’t that expensive. The beauty is that there’s no need for compulsory purchase or anything. If the environment and transport access is nice enough, and the Council rules supportive, the market will deal with it. If Giltrap can make a fortune by selling the land, they likely would, and if not, most of the neighbours will. Remember also we are talking decades here, not years.
Look to the schools out in the newly ruined countryside for examples of building up. Both Waitakere and Swanson primary schools have two storey classrooms (with a lift for disability access), and Waitakere also got a two storey admin block attached to it’s hall.
Beware the Min of Ed, who pushed both schools to remove their pools so the land could be used for more classrooms. Swanson gave in (the pool needed expensive repairs), but the Waitakere community fought back.
With the clear out in the used car business, a lot of those car yards are vacant. Could be a good time for the council to snap them up at a discount. 🙂
I like to use the building at the corner of Bond and GNR as a bad example of urban design.
It lies somewhere between bland and actively ugly. No wonder it’s taking so long to fill it up. There’s huge demand for residential and commercial in Grey Lynn/ Arch Hill but the punters didn’t like what they saw here. And who can blame them? People want to live in and look at “character” buildings.
This ridge is perfect for increasing development density, but will need some imaginative thought to make it a desirable area. Could this be the showroom for “Pacific Deco” style architecture?
Auckland must have something to give to the world of architecture. Maybe it’s time?
It’s not a particularly exciting building but then I think it’s unrealistic (and not necessarily desirable) for every building to look iconic. I think its scale works OK and it fronts the street in a reasonable manner (probably better than the New North Road example in my more recent post).
Not every building has to look iconic, but if they had a “style” of some type and every building along the ridge riffed on that style we could get some quite exciting streetscape along this prominent ridge.
Developers could, of course, be offered extra height/ floor space as an incentive. Might mention it in the DAP submission.
God knows our architects need a challenge…
Not to be nit picky there Geoff but I think you mean the building is a bad example of architecture if you are concerned with it being bland and uninspiring.
The urban design of the building is actually quite sound, in terms of factors such as the number of floors, the uses, the position and coverage of the site etc. In my opinion it has the right sort of height and bulk (on an appropriate scale of the inner-urban locale, dense but still human scaled), it engages properly with the street on both frontages (rather than having one side a blank wall or carparking area for example), it has an active frontage of retail units (rather than residences fronting the kerb or a fence blocking them or something).
It may not be the Louvre or the Sydney Opera House, but it is designed appropriately for its intended uses and the context of the part of the city in which it is located. It may be bland architecturally but the urban design is quite good.
Ditto- just about to write the same thing…. No problem with this land use, siting, and even massing, so the UD isn’t at fault; but it isn’t great architecture….
Interesting though that they have struggled to lease/sell the retail units in this building but the apartments seem full [?]. Not surprising as it isn’t an obvious place for the scale of business unit they built, more appropriate for an established high pedestrian count retail street. They may have done better by catering for bigger units, the return per sq. m would have been lower, but lower than unlet shops? In time with more apartments on the ridge these will get filled but I’m sure they’re hurting now. This is a shame because how these blocks meet the footpath is hugely important for the quality of the streetscape, a mass of metal grills protecting cars parked at grade is terrible and should be discouraged by planning regs. By far the best is to have the buildings open with some kind of business at the street. But they can’t all be cafés and bars. And a truly vibrant community will still have somewhere to get your tires balanced, or teeth fixed, or some other more prosaic non-High St function.
So while you can’t love this building I do commend the developer for trying to meet the pavement better than many but really they to think a little broader about what a good tenant could be.
Thank you Nick, and Patrick,
I didn’t know that. Assumed that because the Urban Design panel deals with the architectural style of buildings too, it was all very intertwined.
I will take Nick’s kind offer and rephrase that it’s a good example of bad architecture.
Certainly the boundaries between urban planning, urban design and urban architecture aren’t totally distinct. My understanding of the Urban Design Panel is that they do focus mostly on the nuts and bolts of the design rather than being architectural ‘style police’ (which is a bit of a shame sometimes…)