Plans for more than 700 apartments at Avondale Central by the partnership. Image / resource consent application to Auckland Council
Plans for more than 700 apartments at Avondale Central by the partnership. Image / resource consent application to Auckland Council
Consent has been sought for the new Manawa [heart or pulse] residential project bringing 728 apartments in eight blocks rising three to 10 levels on land to be sold by Auckland Council in Avondale.
Auckland Council received the resource consent application for the scheme, to be developed onland the council is selling.
The applicant is Marutūāhu Ockham No 5 Limited Partnership which Companies Office records show was registered in 2022.
Both acknowledged the legal dispute but neither would say precisely what that is about although Whau Local Board chairwoman Kay Thomas wrote a February memo seeking Manawa’s limited notification due to scale, size, setback requirements and infringing maximum permitted height.
All up, 24 documents were submitted for Manawa’s application.
Those include a cover letter, an assessment of environmental effects, a landscape plan, a ground contamination site investigation, a geotechnical report, a traffic assessment, an urban design study, a stormwater management plan, a wind assessment, an infrastructure report, an acoustics assessment, construction and noise vibration assessment and iwi feedback.
The application showed the 728 units and eight shops with 15,871sq m floor space for 6-10 Racecourse Pde, with frontages onto Great North Rd, Avondale Town Square and Avondale Central Reserve. The traffic assessment said 282 studio units, 24 one-bedroom units, four one-bedroom/one-study apartments, 290 two-bedroom places and 128 three-bedroom units were planned.
A total of 282 car parks, 754 secure cycle parks and 55 visitor cycle parks are proposed.
Height and setback are non-complying, the application says.
View of plans for Avondale's Manawa. Photo / resource consent application to Auckland Council
An urban design assessment told how in 1975, Albert Gubay built the 3 Guys supermarket on the site where there was also an arcade and a few smaller shops. The rest was car parking.
That supermarket was shut and then demolished in 1997 and the site has been empty since then, a sore point with Avondale Business Association chairman Marcus Amosa who said it had been nearly 28 years since buildings in Avondale’s heart came down, and he wants action.
“Racecourse Parade has remained empty since 1998 due to two restrictive covenants placed on the title: the first covenant was if land in Mt Eden was used as a supermarket, the Avondale land could not be similarly used. The second covenant was placed by the council that the site, 6 and 10 Racecourse Parade could not be sold separately from each other. In October 2017, Auckland Council’s regeneration agency Eke Panuku purchased the site,” the urban design statement submitted in the consent application said.
Manawa would be “a collection of tried and tested Ockham standards”, the application said: medium-density living, regenerating exciting city living habits and timeless aesthetics.
Plans for the proposed Manawa at Avondale before and after: a blank wall with a mural (left) has been changed to a sheer wall with windows (right). Photo / resource consent application to Auckland Council
During the application phase, parts of Manawa have been redesigned for visual relief of building height and bulk.
Six months of pre-application consultation resulted in the first application being made on December 16 but a February 12 letter to the council said that was withdrawn, altered and re-submitted.
Duty commissioner Kim Hardy has recommended Manawa be fully notified.
One apartment block’s sheer north-facing wall was to be relieved only by a mural, so plans were altered to give relief.
“In the resubmission of the proposal, the applicant has removed the mural component at the northern elevation of proposed building 6A, replacing it with a completely fire-rated brick and window facade which will introduce a residential aesthetic onto this elevation while still allowing the abutting property to build to the boundary.”
The change would mean considerable extra costs. A curved corner was also introduced to provide relief to the height and appearance. That meant changes to the floor plate to allow for the curve as well as all the windows.
Dale the Avondale Spider. Photo / Dean Purcell
A Herald story this week reported on the dispute between Eke Panuku and the applicant.
Kay Thomas, Whau Local Board chairwoman, said Manawa as it is designed now would shade Avondale’s new planned community centre and library Te Hono.
Construction of that centre is planned to begin next year, Thomas told the Herald today.
Another developer pointed to Ockham repaying apartment deposits on The Feynman. The Avondale deal had been initially struck in 2021 when the market was strong, he noted. Since then, the economy had hit a recession and selling that many apartments in a single project would be extremely difficult, the developer predicted.
Mark Todd complained about Eke Panuku.
“The years of work that went into the expression of interest process - including the development of the poorly-conceived reference design and essential outcomes - has resulted in a suboptimal location and orientation of the Te Hono community centre. Eke Panuku have completely redesigned Te Hono over the course of our legal dispute,” Todd said.
An Eke Panuku spokeswoman said yesterday his business was yet to pay for the land. The council entity had run a contestable process to find a development partner. All parties who participated in that process did so on the full understanding of the requirement to meet known required outcomes for this development site, she said.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
