26 April, 2023

Huge apartment tower planned for Takapuna site

Renters the target market in housing game changer

A 39-storey tower and 358 ‘build to rent’ dwellings are included in a massive new development planned for central Takapuna.

The proposal – for a prime block-wide corner site next to the Toka Puia public car-parking building – includes a tiered street-front ‘podium’ up to six storeys high, along with ground-floor retail, hospitality and business space. The 140.6m-high trapezoidal tower will rise behind it.

The development would rival the nearby Sentinel apartment tower, which has only 30 storeys but peaks at 150m, so would narrowly remain the North Shore’s tallest building.

The project would be the Shore’s largest ex- ample of a build-to-rent residential development. One of the two companies in the trans-Tasman consortium behind it already has a partnership with student-accommodation operator UniLodge, though student housing is not mentioned in an application for planning consent.

Apartments in the plan include 64 as small as 42sqm, plus balconies. In addition to studios, units with one, two and three-bedrooms are offered. Tenants would have access to extensive common areas, including dining, gym, lounge and recreation facilities, a pool, roof-top space, meeting areas and on-site management.

The consortium has lodged an application in the name of Gasometer Developments Ltd for a non-notified consent to build in the metropolitan centre zone.

Its application to Auckland Council planners lodged this month carried an attachment described as an endorsement from council property arm Eke Panuku. A spokesman for Eke Panuku confirmed after Observer inquiries last that it had entered into a conditional sales and development agreement for the council-owned land dating back to 2021.

A sale price would not be revealed until settlement by the company, the spokesperson said. The partners behind Gasometer Developments are New Zealand property development and management company McDonnell Developments and Cedar Pacific, an Australian-based investment funds management company with a focus on developing and operating residential communities, including student accommodation. Cedar Pacific has set up a fund to invest in bespoke build-to- rent facilities in New Zealand, to be operated with Unilodge, which already runs facilities in

Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. “The principal concept underpinning the build-to-rent model is to provide an attractive community-based development which provides for long-term tenure by residents,” the consent proposal says.

Eke Panuku says build-to-rent is common overseas and an emerging model here, with owners being investors, not landlords. Professionally managed sites could offer high-quality housing choices, with hotel-style amentities.

“This development will significantly increase the number of living options in Takapuna, allowing more people to live near the town centre,” said the priority location director for northern area, Kate Cumberpatch.

The 2875sqm site, bounded by Huron, Northcroft and Auburn Sts, is currently fenced off, with a mural on the boards. It is known as the Gasometer site in a nod to the land’s use for gas storage and distribution until the 1980s.

Details of the tower proposal show:
• Construction is likely to take more than three years, from earthworks to interior finishing.

• At the peak of earthworks up to 30 trucks a day will enter and leave the site.
• On-site parking for 150 vehicles, to be ac- cessed off Northcroft St.

• Parks for 59 bikes. Storage lockers big enough to fit a further 117 bikes are planned.
• The main pedestrian entrance to the complex, from Huron St, is to be recessed and canopied.
• Six trees planted along Auburn St will be removed for the build, with four reinstated.

The pavement on Auburn St, an arterial road, was widened last year, but plans to upgrade Huron and Northcroft St have recently been scaled back due to tight council budgets and public derision about proposed design elements.

The development is in line with council’s Unlock Takapuna plans, with the Gasometer site having been identified as one of two keystone sites under the 2017 Takapuna Framework Plan. (The wider site of more than 6000sqm includes the six-storey Toka Puia car park, opened in December 2020, and a vacant lot to the east of it being used as a temporary community garden.)

The other key site is the Anzac St public car park, now known as Waiwharariki Anzac Square, where Eke Panuku brokered a land sale for apartments to another developer, Willis Bond, a year ago. These will be at the town square’s northern end, facing onto Anzac St. Willis Bond has options to buy further public land around the edges of the town square, which Eke Panuku is building.

It is unclear how well public-transport facilities can be accommodated into the growth coming to Takapuna, including a proposed light-rail spur in Waka Kotahi options for a second harbour crossing.

The Observer asked Eke Panuku if proceeds from the Gasometer site sale would be spent locally or go into general funds. It said its urban regeneration neighbourhoods programme was viewed as a collective. “When a site is sold, the revenue generated goes into a ‘pot’ and the money in this ‘pot’ is allocated based on offering the best value for Aucklanders.”

Council planners will now decide on the application and any conditions surrounding it. Parts of the application fail to meet planning rules, including wind and shading effects; and balconies on the smallest allowable units are only 7sqm rather than the 8sqm set down. But the applicants say the variations are minor and should be allowed.

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