As we keep pointing out, the development community is really coming back to life and lots of projects are now on the table again. This is most likely being brought on by a number of factors:
- Higher land prices are making developments more viable.
- The Unitary Plan, despite only being notified and not in place yet, has given developers some certainty about Auckland’s future.
- The economy is looking healthier and so it is becoming easier for developers to obtain finance
- Migration levels are increasing bringing more people into the city.
Today brings news of more development proposals. This time in Bayswater and at Alexandra Park.
Bayswater
The Herald reports:
A marina village is proposed for a “wasted” island which is a 10-minute ferry ride across Waitemata Harbour from the Auckland CBD.
Bayswater Marina lost a 2009 Environment Court appeal against North Shore City Council restrictions on residential building on its 3.4ha, which was reclaimed when the marina was built in the 1990s.
However, owner Simon Herbert said much has changed since – notably the receptive attitude of the Super City councillors to housing plans near the city centre.
It has encouraged Mr Herbert, who bought the marina in 2006, to work on a fresh plan for a better return from the land, which is presently parking lots for trailer boats and cars.
“It’s like a little island attached to the mainland by a causeway only 2km from the CBD. It has spectacular views back to the city and could offer an ideal lifestyle and a beautiful public area by the water. I feel it’s a wasted resource of land at the moment.”
Mr Herbert and his wife, Paula, say the new proposal fits the Auckland Plan and the proposed Unitary Plan, which is now out for comment. This provided for quality urban design, a mix of places for people to live and more places for people to live around transport nodes, including ferry services.
Due to the previous opposition to building heights (and as we have seen its common thing on the shore) it’s suggested that the development will be limited to three storeys in height and have about 125 dwelling on it. That’s a little bit of a shame but still 125 dwellings more than are on the site right now. Although even that is too much for some of the locals who seem to feel they have a right on the land.
Long-standing opponent of marina housing Paddy Stafford-Bush said: “This is reclaimed land from the seabed and it belongs to the people. It’s nice the way it is and people are comfortable with it and the way it looks and works.”
Now admittedly it is a bit difficult to access the marina due to it being at the end of a peninsula however the really big opportunity with this development is that it should help to improve justification for improving ferry services to the marina. Currently services are half hourly in the peak, hourly off peak and almost non-existent in the weekends. If those were able to be improved due to the extra people then that would also benefit the rest of the community.
In fact it would be would be quite interesting exercise for AT and the council to do some work out how many extra people in the ferry catchment would be needed to improve services and what impact that would have on residents views. For example what if an extra 500 people in the area were needed to justify improved frequencies that would benefit everyone and this development delivered 300. How would that change the dynamic of those that support/oppose the project? By more directly showing locals the benefits of intensification it might actually help to get them supporting more of it.
Alexandra Park
Across town in Greenlane the owners of Alexandra Park want to develop some of their land.
Auckland’s Alexandra Park could be the scene of more than $110 million of commercial and residential developments over the next decade.
Members of the Auckland Trotting Club have voted by a huge majority to support their board in the first $41 million development of a joint purpose building at 223 Green Lane West.
The building is proposed to have four floors of apartments, ground floor commercial space and an underground carpark.
If that venture is successful the trotting club has the option of similar developments on two further Green Lane West sections.
The Unitary plan lists the highlighted section below as mixed use (as opposed to special purpose like the rest of the site) so this is most likely where they are planning on building the apartments.
I think the site will be quite a good one for intensification as there are a number of high quality amenities nearby especially Cornwall Park providing a lot of open space. Further transport should be quite good from this location, Manukau Rd is only a few hundred metres away and has frequent buses heading towards the CBD (although it could do with some bus lanes) while Greenlane West will also see frequent buses providing easy cross-town trips.
Let’s hope both of these can successfully go ahead.
One other development we haven’t really talked about before, but that we probably should have is Springpark in Mt Wellington which has just recently obtained resource consent. The development is converting land that is currently a plant nursery into 420 low rise terraced houses and apartments that is an example of getting intensification in the suburbs without having medium or high rise buildings. In fact a quick calculation suggests that an average of just two people per dwelling on this site will deliver a density of ~8,000 per km². That’s quite a bit above what we currently see in many parts of Auckland.
The site looks like it has some connections out to Mt Wellington Rd which will have frequent buses on it which is good.
Works on the site are expected to start next month and both this and Hobsonville point could end up as excellent examples of future suburban development
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Great to see these developments in the pipeline. I hope to see more quality affordable housing developments like Springpark. Unfortunately Hobsonville Point seemed to go from affordable to expensive overnight
Springpark looks fantastic. Exactly what we need to sell Auckland on the idea of higher density living. Grided as well. Nice. Imagine refitting many suburbs in this style?
It does look reasonable, but would it kill them to put some variation in? Why have 6-8 houses next to each other look exactly the same? Vary 2-3 standard typologies instead, to give it a more organic feel?
Agree on the variation. But love the look of the site – a lot of websites about developments seem to have hardly any info about the area, etc. The location map (and cool graphic with train!) is particularly nice: http://springpark.co.nz/location/location-map/
Doesn’t the East West Link project ram right through Springpark?
not through the middle of it but likely to seriously affect Panama Rd
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/06/11/more-info-on-the-east-west-link/
Like the Alexandra Park idea. As I drove through Green Lane last weekend, it occurred to me that it would be an excellent location for a light rail system. Has that been considered before? It could go all the way from MOTAT to the Green Lane highway junction, or even beyond. Currently, bus 007 is a direct service from St John’s/Glen Innes to St Luke’s across Green Lane. Not sure if this is in the CFN map?
Well, I was studying traffic volumes along St Lukes / Balmoral Rd a couple of months back and do you know what? volumes have been dropping for the past 8 or so years. With the opening of the WRR, I see further potential for reducing vehicle numbers and increasing it’s use for PT and active transport.
Try living around here. The intersections at Greenlane – Gt Sth Rd, and Manukau – Greenlane West back all the time, even from one to the other. And ‘rush hour’ is a nightmare.
Unfortunately the NIMBYs in my ‘hood of Bayswater will fight that development with their dying breath (which considering their average age won’t be that far away) as they do any change to the area. Such a pity because right now Bayswater could do with some new life, especially the Belmont shopping area, as the business associations will tell you.
Interesting to see this photo of Bayswater in 1986:
http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23039937
If the NIMBYs of the day had had their way back then, most of today’s NIMBYs wouldnt have a house to live in and the marina as it is now would not exist.
Exhibit A, “absolute betrayal”:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1309/S00074/absolute-betrayal-of-bayswater-and-belmont-communities.htm
Yep – exactly.
Quote: “But regardless of the type of housing, the principles of recreation with marine-oriented with a focus on recreation and boating still prevail”, said Grant Gillon.
They keep banging on about this but I have not seen one concrete proposal to build anything with a marine focus. Meanwhile, the area is just a car park and a half empty one at that even at its peak – a beautiful feature of the area. This encourages local residents to drive 300m to the ferry (that is not an exaggeration, I cycle past a woman who does that every day).
A development would be great and add some life to that end of the peninsula. Maybe a couple of nice cafes I could wander down to on a weekend. I am sure Fullers would love it.
You mean like a ship building yard? I imagine that wouldn’t be acceptable either.
You do have to wonder about the comment “This is reclaimed land from the seabed and it belongs to the people.” This would therefore be true of most of downtown, Wyndham Quarter and parts of Freemans Bay.
Who paid for the works to reclaim the land from the sea? bet the residents didn’t. In other words someone else paid for something that these people have derived value from at no financial cost to them (probably the opposite with the marina being located there) and are now upset with anything that might tinker with the benefits they have been receiving for free.
Can these people hurry up and move to the Poynton so they can see how amazing density can be already?
Quote from the Bayswater Article – “It’s nice the way it is and people are comfortable with it and the way it looks and works” – quite funny considering approx. 80% of the total site is dedicated to car parking and on-land boat storage – so it LOOKS and WORKS like a … carpark. The size of the area they proposed to develop is not that much bigger than the existing green space by the ferry terminal, no biggie in my mind. I wonder if they could get it in the SHAs?
if they can feet 250 apartments in Bayswater I can’t imagine how many they could fit here:https://maps.google.co.nz/maps?q=bayswater&ll=-36.843757,174.780636&spn=0.011728,0.024397&hnear=Bayswater,+Auckland&t=h&z=16
You could build a whole new city there. Imagine how much more lively the city would be with 50,000 people living right on the waterfront.
These look like nice developments. Certainly shows intensification doesn’t necessarily require tall apartment towers (like the ones in Herne bay). As for the Bayswater development 3 storeys is about right. A wall of towers isn’t really the best outcome for our waterfront IMHO.
Agreed, 3 or maybe 4 closer to the existing houses would be a suitable scale, will match in with the existing cliff line and the masts of the boats so it looks natural.
And who said the commentators on this blog didn’t appreciate local context hehe.
Racetracks are an anachronism, with the sector on life-support. For the moment the clubs that own these tracks are still holding on to them, but they’re worth millions (hundreds of millions in some cases) of dollars in land. Eventually they’ll start to sell land (this is a prelude), and we’ll see large residential and commercial developments in Greenlane and Avondale.
Wasn’t the Avondale one already earmarked for development? It was mentioned in a long-term plan for New Lynn and surrounds.
With respect, race tracks are more than places for horses to race, they are also parks where the locals enjoy the amenity. Auckland is supposed to be turning into a ‘livable City’ where people live, work and play’ and isn’t a day at the races with some gambling activity thrown in play? Open spaces with vistas are amenities to be hung on to. In fact, I find it a bit of a worry that the clubs are having to find alternative uses for parts of their land for income.
I’m not sure if 500 extra people in the area would be enough to justify significantly improving frequencies on the ferry. Assuming half of them used it daily (which is very optimistic), that’s only an extra 250 passengers which would not be even the equivalent of one full ferry load of passengers.
Don’t the Bayswater ferris have a capacity of less than 100?
Also, let us say 100 return trips every business day and 50 on the weekend, that is 200,000 trips a year, or $900,000 a year in fares, that covers a fair few services.
A 5 star eco-rating for Springpark is a great thing. Hopefully we get mandatory 5 star in the Auckland plan, but it’s nice to see it being adopted voluntarily. After all, the cost isn’t much more, but the benefits are great.
I believe the land surrounding Alexandra Park is all leasehold, owned by the Cornwall Park Trust. The Herald article isn’t clear whether the Trotting Club owns their patch – merely that they want to develop it.
Alarm bells go off in my head buying any property on LH land. Fine if you’re renting; not so fine when you own it and have no control over the ground rent at renewal time. Potentially your asset becomes unsellable if the ground rent is exorbitant.
Some parts are leasehold (from the Cornwall Park Trust and the Crown), but the parcel Matt highlighted is owned outright by the Trotting Club.
At the risk of plugging what I do in my day job, you can find out who owns parcels of land from the LINZ Data Service website: http://data.linz.govt.nz/maps/restricted-owner-data-group/
Hi there, My name is Pearse Stacey-Harman and i am from Rangitoto college, i am currently studying the bayswater marina development for level 3 assessment 3.5 & 3.6, Would anybody please be able to email me so i can send you my survey on this development and possibly get an interview? we could do that over the phone. please email me at pearse0071@hotmail.com, Thanks Pearse
Hi all, I am from Rangitoto college and currently for my level 3 assessment 3.5 & 3.6 i am studying wether the bayswater marina development should go ahead. Wether you strongly agree or disagree can you please fill out this survey in order for me and my group to find out if its a positive or negative influence on the bayswater and surrounding areas. don’t worry this survey is completely annoymus and all the help is very much appreciated.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V7HXB2R
Thanks for your time