The first 14 houses are completed at a new 150-section gated Auckland beach-front community on a 93ha site.
Developer Evan Williams of Weiti Bay, between Long Bay and Silverdale, said 120 sites were sold for $900k to $2 million each in the project, gated for design and privacy reasons andbecause proposed roads did not meet public access requirements.
Williams is the former chairman of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and of the national law firm Chapman Tripp.
"The gate is due to a combination of things including Auckland Transport requirements. We didn't want to change the hills and valleys, which would have lost the natural contours of the land if we built wider roads," he said.
Around 5km of internal roadways have been built from the beach-front valley into surrounding hills.
Section buyers don't have any set timeframes on construction but must adhere to covenants on design, density and height.
Rules for residents included an architecture code, provisions for the management of native bush and protection of wildlife, a ban on cat ownership and controls on dogs.
Williams has previously been involved in developing two Northland beachfront luxury properties: Bream Tail and Mataka Station, working with others including Bill Birnie.
At Weiti Bay, he says he is aiming to bring some of the Northland formula closer to Auckland, creating a coastal haven within commuting range to Auckland city.
"That alone cost $30 million," Williams said of the new 5km-long Ara Weiti Rd and infrastructure which runs from East Coast Bays Rd down to the new beachfront subdivision.
Evan Williams at the Weiti Bay development. Photo / Jason Oxenham
An Auckland Transport spokesman said Rodney District Council consented to the development and AT had paid for part of the road into the residential project to be upgraded.
"In 2016, there was an agreement between Auckland Transport and Weiti Development to upgrade part of the access road from East Coast Road to the gate of Weiti Bay – a distance of approximately 1.5 kilometres," the spokesman said.
AT contributed $2m to the developer to make sure the access road was built to the standard required for Penlink, he said.
Williams said the first 1.5km was access to the yet-to-be-built Penlink to connect SH1 to Whangaparaoa.
Weiti Bay where 120 of the 150 sections are sold. Photo / supplied
Penlink (peninsula link road) is the proposed new alternative route between the Northern Motorway and Whangaparaoa and an interchange will be built off State Highway 1 at the East Coast Rd entrance to Weiti Bay. That will eliminate the need to travel on about 9km of local roads between Weiti Bay and the Oteha Valley Rd interchange, which is the only motorway offramp access to the new subdivision now. In June 2021, the Government confirmed funding for the project, with construction expected to start around late 2022.
Sites are 1500sq m to 2000sq m, and 66ha will remain green open space.
Williams said more than 200,000 native trees and shrubs had been planted so far and an active predator control programme was allowing indigenous wildlife to flourish.
A public access path leads from the new carpark at the subdivision's entry to the beach. Dogs are barred from that beach but can be walked within the 93ha subdivision.
The land was previously owned by Taiwanese-controlled Green & McCahill Holdings. Companies associated with Williams, Ara Weiti Development and Ara Weiti Bay Development purchased the Weiti Bay sites at a mortgagee sale in 2020.
Court documents reveal that the mortgagee sale triggered court actions between Green & McCahill Holdings and Williams' companies.
Weiti Bay between Whangaparaoa and Long Bay. Photo / Google Maps
Williams declined to comment.
Pre-development, much of the 93ha site was planted in commercial pine, part of the Weiti Forest, although that has smaller areas of exotic and native vegetation.
Williams said section buyers were "younger than I expected", many with young families wanting to build for lifestyle reasons.
Eleven additional new houses are now under construction and one place is around 800sq m - around four times the size of New Zealander's average 200sq m new house.
Some sections have been re-sold after the initial purchase and one completed house has resold in the $3.7m range, Williams said.
"We've approved 40 sets of plans so far," Williams said of new homes planned there.
Views are protected by height limits in a master plan by Boffa Miskell. Modern Architecture Partners from Christchurch wrote the architectural code for Weiti Bay.
Te Kawerau ā Maki, Ngāti Manuhiri and Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara were the main iwi consulted over plans.
Emergency services have the gate code to ensure they can get to homes on the other side of the rock wall and rolling gate.
Williams expects around 400 people to eventually live on the land, where no show home was built.
