Last year Auckland Transport announced it was dropping the Newton station from the City Rail Link in favour of a redeveloped Mt Eden station. Some of the key reasons cited included:
- That heritage and view shaft restrictions severely limited the redevelopment potential around the station. Also much of the redevelopable land probably has easier access to the K Rd station with the entrance to Mercury Lane.
- It allowed them to build a grade separated junction instead of a flat one (like all the other Auckland ones are) which is better for reliability.
- It saved around $120 million
On the first point they noted the restrictions around Newton aren’t present around the Mt Eden station so there’s the potential for a lot of development. This is especially the case seeing as a huge chunk of the area will be dug up to build the tunnels leaving lots of vacant land available.
An image in a recent presentation shows how much the area could be developed once the CRL has been completed
That could represent a substantial number of dwellings. It would be interesting to know how much money raised from the redevelopment and sale of that land could contribute towards the cost of the overall project – something I don’t think is able to be included in the business case.
This is image if the potential street pattern that was shown when the change as announced
And an idea of what the redeveloped station might look like.
Processing...
Might be a dumb question, but is there any chance/need that there be provision for light rail transfers? Maybe a concourse that preserves approaches so it could be added in future?
The station is some 300m east of the Ian McKinnon light rail route and 200m away from the Mt Eden light rail route. So – walking transfers yes, direct transfers no.
I assume there would be similar development further to the east of that map, where the other tunnel comes up and joins towards Grafton Station? It’s hard to see where exactly that would be on the top picture.
Is there still a Grafton side entrance to the crl? They avoid it in a lot of station design images
There is a tunnel from Grafton but it isn’t shown probably because it’s underground and there’s no access from it to Mt Eden i.e. Mt Eden is only served by trains on western line
That’s what I’m saying – there must be development opportunities as it will have a portal somewhere that they will have to purchase land for.
That portal is under the easternmost dark-red development shown above, i.e. they already include it. The eastern part of the rail triangle then runs in a deeper-than-now trench up to roughly where Normanby Road crosses, at which point it merges with the existing rail line (roughly it – you can find better plans by googling around for the NOR and other plans released).
Where are the view shafts from and to? Presumably to Mt Eden, but where from? It would surely have to be a very tall wall of buildings to completely block-out Mt Eden. Is it allowable to have clusters of high-rises to “bookend” the views of Mt Eden from different view shaft directions? What are the building height limits and dispensation allowances for Eden Terrace? (Surely this will determine the future of Eden Terrace.)
Also, the light rail line should run through the centre of Eden Terrace to be proximate to the maximum catchment area, and Stage 1 of the light rail line should extend to Mt Eden railway station to allow interchange between the rail network and stops along the route in Eden Terrace/Uptown/Midtown that may be more convenient to some users than the K Road or Aotea stations on the CRL (i.e., it doesn’t matter that it’s a duplication, as it reinforces the desire line potentials for the route). (Nobody would choose to head toward the edge of the CMJ wasteland on Ian McKinnon Drive.)
Heres a link to all the viewshaft maps. http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/planspoliciesprojects/plansstrategies/DistrictRegionalPlans/aucklandcitydistrictplanisthmus/Pages/protectionmapshome.aspx
You can turn on the view shaft details on the Council GIS viewer.
Really? Where do they hide that layer? I can never find layers in that GIS viewer, they really need the layers to be searchable as there are so many of them. I always end up resorting to the old ACC district viewshaft maps, themselves a nightmare to find on the new Auckland Council website…
Thanks Mike F. After a bit of fiddling I found how to see the view shafts. Eden Terrace is covered with them from all over the place. The text says “Blanket Height Sensitive Areas rps/dp” but doesn’t say what the height limit is or what the view angle is from which point to which point.
I guess the height limit depends on the elevation and location of a specific site in relation to the sight lines of the view shafts. There must be quite a lot of sites that could be redeveloped to be way more than 2-3 stories and still be within the various view shaft building envelopes?
Presumably the sight lines aim toward the unbuilt-on parts of Mt Eden. If so, then as the ground slopes downhill from the high point of Eden Terrace to the valley in the vicinity of Mt Eden railway station, the buildings can get progressively higher as the ground slopes down and the sight lines slope up. This would mean the top floors of each successively higher building to the south would have great views of the harbour and Hauraki Gulf looking north, so should be highly sought after.
If this is correct, then AT are correct to choose the vicinity of Mt Eden railway station as a focus for redevelopment rather than the previously proposed “Newton” (Eden Terrace) station on the CRL route.
However, the close proximity of Eden Terrace to he CBD will still make it highly sought after as well. All the more reason to run the LRT though the centre of Eden Terrace, instead of skirting around the edge of it alongside the CMJ wasteland (unless a lid is put on the CMJ and the area above it is then redeveloped).
In any case, the public land associated with the CRL and LRT will over time increase in value a lot, so subsequent redevelopments should be leased, not sold, so that this socially-created value is returned to the public forever, not sold once, with all future value increases going to private owners.
Yes when i was shopping for a house i was quite concerned some of the view shafts might prevent me putting a second story on to add some density without destroying the garden. What i found is most of them are only limiting for towers. Even a house that backed onto the summit of Mt Albert had an 8m limit.
The maps show you the hight limits that apply in each shaft area, e.g. 9m limit on the top slopes of Mt Eden. http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/district/viewp/vppdfs/Map10a.pdf
and the area of the Mt Eden station here, though the particular viewshaft going over the station doesn’t have a hight limit, i think you need the maps for the ‘central area’ district plan maps, good luck finding thoose.
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/district/viewp/vppdfs/Map9a.pdf
How do you navigate to the view shafts in the GIS viewer?
To see the regional viewshafts on the council GIS viewer.
Go to ‘Map Content’ on the right hand side,click ‘more data’ and select ‘Visual protection/volcanic cones’ and add data to the map
Zoom in and you will see the viewshafts and contours depicting the approximate height from the ground (Lidar survey data) to the viewshaft.
Hmm, that’s the thing, It’s not there. Map content -> More data
I see LIveMaps/AerialPhotoIndex
a load more LiveMaps/xxx stuff
and then a bunch of Raster/AerialPhotography19xx
nothing about viewshafts. I know it’s in there somewhere, i got it up once following a link on the council website.
OK here’s the central district map[1] with the E10 viewshaft over the newton station, but again no actual hight limits
But found another map in the appendix[2]. Third page E10. Looks like both Mt Eden and proposed Newton stations covered by the E10 viewshaft. Newton looks like hight limits were about 15 meters, whereas it’s mostly in the 30s for the mt eden station location, though there is a slither of 12m.
[1] http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/central/maps/cbdmap04.asp
[2] http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/central/pdfs/appendix112.pdf
The buildings in that ‘redevelopment’ potential don’t look much over 15m do they? It seems you could have done that at Newton?
Thanks Dan.
So from these maps, at the west end of Morrow Street in Newmarket buildings can be 36 m high, and at the west end of St Albans Avenue in Mt Eden, 51m high? (There must be other height limits in place, otherwise some people are sitting on a goldmine.)
How did I get the view shafts on the GIS viewer? I don’t think I did, I just somehow stumbled onto this page on the Council web site: http://aucklandopendata.aucklandcouncil.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/bb1ead7ff6c94557b183085f074e0114_0?geometry=174.539%2C-36.892%2C175.034%2C-36.809
@dan maybe, but don’t forget about the heritage protections on Symonds Street. That and the Watercare facilities possibly ruled extensive redevelopment out.
My understanding is that a large percentage of the cost of the Toronto Metro was paid for by the added value of land around the metro stations, which was given specific higher development potential based on walking distance from the stations. Aerial views of Toronto show “pimples” of higher buildings around each station.
Logical. Economically, Socially and it makes great sense. Any benefit cost analysis that doesn’t include property value increases and decreases caused by the development is just insane.and ‘not in the real world’.
Exactly. Land value appreciation, if properly taxed/leased, over time might be sufficient to more than recoup the PT infrastructure provision investment (and running expenses, maybe to the extent of zero-fares), and the associated investment of redevelopment and improvement of the adjoining areas (with parks, cycleways, walkways, theatres, galleries, etc.). Future surpluses could be used to fund the next stage of the PT network in an ongoing manner.
(As has been noted on this blog many times, unlike the positive reinforcing effect with PT, the effect is often negative with motorways: as land values are depressed, so is the potential for land-related revenues.)
As far as I understand those profits from appreciation would just end up in the land banker’s pockets. Or is it recovered via developer contributions?
Lloyd and Jamie, you both hit a very nail right on the head. Ideally the AC, AT and the government should be planning all the rail upgrades so the increased land values can be captured and offset against costs. Other examples I can think of include Taipei, Taiwan where the MRT generates enormous value for the city government;and in Tokyo where most major rail stations have huge shopping and commercial premises above them such as the Tokyu dept stores above the privately owned Tokyu line stations.