Metlifecare building consultants say plan to have 'minor' residential effect

SITE: Artist's impression of the Metlifecare at Bayfair that Marwood Place residents have objected to, due to overshadowing concerns.

Residents living next to a planned two-storey rest home development at Bayfair will lose about two hours of late afternoon midwinter sun from overshadowing.

But the developer Metlifecare argued that the impact on the Marwood Place homes would have been much worse from a building that went to the limit of what was permitted, as of right by council planning rules.

Arguments mounted by residents to minimise the effects of the proposed extension to the Somervale Retirement Village were rebutted by consultants at a resource consent hearing yesterday.

The two-storey development on a bare-land site behind Somervale will accommodate 70 care units, 16 serviced apartments and supporting facilities.

Whereas residents want the building shifted further back from their boundary and replaced by carparks, urban designer and architect Grant Neill warned that the carparks would result in night-time disturbances for neighbours.

Mr Neill told hearings commissioner Peter Crawford that the building had been designed to help alleviate boredom and loneliness by using Eden Alternative and Green House Project principles to create a positive area for the elderly.

The building's 3-metre distance from the boundary with Marwood Place was twice the legal minimum, with the 5.6m high external walls about the same height as a typical suburban two-storey house.

Mr Neill said the shadow line from the building would reach the houses between 2pm and 3pm on the winter solstice, depending on their distance from the boundary. Sunset was just after 5pm.

He said it was important to compare the size and siting of the proposed building with the 9m height and 1.5m boundary distance permitted by the City Plan. The legal limit would generate a significantly worse shading situation.

He said it could not be concluded that the development would cause colder houses and higher power bills, when they had demonstrated that shading would be significantly less than an "as of right" development.

On the issue of neighbourhood concerns about the bulk and length of the building, with some comparing it with the Berlin Wall, Mr Neill said the side facing residents had been designed to step in and out at the major sections, with the facade further broken up at the junctions of bathrooms and bedrooms.

Planning consultant Shae Crossan answered residents' concerns about the length of the building. "While other district plans have controls over building lengths adjoining residential boundaries, there are no controls in the Tauranga City Plan." Mr Crossan said it was inevitable that the development would change the character and environment, given that the site was vacant. "The facility can be absorbed in this location and the effects on residential character will be minor."

Mr Crawford reserved his decision.