The $90m, 3.1ha ex-Caughey Preston site where big plans are proposed. Photo / Colliers
Planning is progressing for Remuera’s 3.17ha $90 million ex-Caughey Preston rest home site via two state authorities.
Environment Minister David Parker and Te Mana Rauhi Taiao the Environmental Protection Authority are involved in the application.
Information from that authority shows the developers are using the Government’s fast-tracking method to seek approval for their huge scheme on the site at 17 Upland Rd, between Ventnor Rd and Lucerne Rd, below Remuera Rd.
In early 2020, Andrew Caughey, chairman of the Marianne Caughey Smith-Preston Memorial Rest Homes Trust, said the 3.1ha property had been listed for sale.
Caughey, managing director of department store Smith & Caughey’s, is the great-great nephew of Irish migrant Marianne Caughey Smith-Preston, who started a drapery shop in Auckland in 1880 and whose legacy created the rest home.
The 108-bed place opened in 1950 to deliver care “second to none” but Caughey said demands changed over the decades, from housing often fitter older women to more geriatric residents, which it was never originally established for. Government funding challenges, law changes and “complexities” in the aged-care model all contributed to issues, he said.
The rest home shut in 2017.
The land was subsequently sold, with settlement due in September 2021.
The latest movement on plans for a new retirement village for the site was three months ago. Consent is being sought via a May 5 change to existing law: Schedule 70 of the Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Referring Projects Order 2020.
The Government introduced that law to accelerate projects.
The schedule for the Remuera project says 185 apartments in 11 blocks up to 17m tall are proposed for the site. A 17m tall building is around five levels high. A 58-bed hospital, underground car parking, lounge and dining areas, activity rooms, a health and wellness centre, a cinema and a gymnasium are also cited in plans lodged by HND Upland and St Andrew’s Village Trust.
Upland Road Retirement Village is the project’s name.
Clearing land by removing vegetation, demolishing buildings and infrastructure, carrying out earthworks, discharging stormwater which might contain contaminants and operating a retirement village is in the description of the project.
An expert consenting panel must invite comments on the application from Health New Zealand, the Ngāti Koheriki Claims Committee, the trustees of Ngā Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara Development Trust, the trustees of Te Ahiwaru Trust and the Hauraki Māori Trust Board, the document said.
Environment Minister David Parker had accepted the application for referral because it has the potential to generate about 3580 fulltime jobs over a construction period of about six years and about 98 fulltime-equivalent jobs through the retirement village’s operation.
It has the potential to increase housing supply via apartments and the hospital.
A spokeswoman for Te Mana Rauhi Taiao the Environmental Protection Authority said the project was listed as awaiting lodgement on its website.
That means those applying have not yet submitted an application for the authority to refer it to an independent consent panel which will make a decision.
The Ministry for the Environment would have more information about the project’s referral, she said.
“Under the Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act 2020, projects had to meet eligibility criteria to be considered for referral by the Minister for the Environment through an Order in Council. Once a project received that, the applicant can then lodge an application with the EPA for consideration by an expert consenting panel,” she said.
The EPA couldn’t provide details showing imagery of what’s planned or further details, the spokeswoman said.
In 2021, Auckland Council valued the site at $90m, of which $85m is land alone.
All buildings there would be demolished under these plans by architects from Ignite’s Auckland office.
Troy Churton, Ōrākei Local Board member, said the board had given feedback to the Environmental Protection Authority on development intensity, vegetation loss and height of proposed buildings on one side of the property.
“On the bright side, the site has historically been a care/village, so the use of the land is no concern to us. We would prefer something like that than just a mass of five-level apartments. But there are concerns about the additional traffic flows and effects on surrounding streets,” Churton said.
The plans mean the site could be intensified more than what he would ideally like, he said.
“It’s unnecessarily dense for the site. But that’s my opinion and a value judgment. Some buildings are within about 1m of a neighbouring boundary,” Churton said.
The fast-track process was designed under Covid-19 lockdowns and it was no longer appropriate for developers to keep using that legislation to avoid Resource Management Act process, he said.
“It’s the classic promiscuous interpretation of a planning law,” Churton said.
Grant Dickson, spokesperson for the neighbourhood retirement village group, said that entity supported the project.
“But we also have concerns about aspects of it, particularly the impact on neighbours, shade and privacy, the need for tree screening and preservation of existing trees on the boundary,” he said.
Dickson is an immediate neighbour of the 3.1ha site so would be personally affected by its development.
The group is talking to people who work at SAV Consulting, owned by St Andrew’s Village Trust. That is part of the Riddell Rd, Glendowie retirement village. SAV Consulting are working with the site’s owners, Dickson said.
Although the application says 17m is the height of buildings proposed for the land, he said the plans he had seen were lower than that.
“We’re disappointed we have not been able to engage with the site’s owners, HND Upland, but we are working with SAV Consulting which is doing the planning and design for the new village,” Dickson said.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully being able to meet and discuss with them the community concerns and how the community can help and support the project.”
HND’s directors are Yaxun Zhang and Xiaomiao Fan, of Scott Rd, Hobsonville.
“People lose sight of the fact there’s so much going on with planning changes. What it will be designated under is unclear,” Dickson said.
The group does not object to 185 apartments “because the site is big enough to handle it”.
The size of the site means many neighbours are on the boundary, he said. Around 25 neighbours are in that position.
“That’s a lot of people. We’re all going to have effects from it.”
Dickson said his group was trying to talk directly to the consultants about neighbourhood concerns.
SAV Consultants had gone directly to the EPA with the scheme and that meant neighbours may not be not consulted, Dickson said.
“We will be asking the EPA if we can make a submission to the expert panel considering this,” Dickson said.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
'Developers are a good target for a council under financial pressure.' - Steve Evans