Fisher & Paykel healthcare says the Karaka site has the potential to become a major employment hub.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare says Auckland Council’s proposed planning strategy doesn’t accommodate its planned 105ha Karaka innovation park that could create thousands of jobs.
It bought the site this year for $275 million.
Jonti Rhodes, supply chain, facilities and sustainability vice president, made a strongly worded written submission on the proposal to limit new development to brownfields or only previously developed sites.
That’s called the future development strategy but the corporation’s Karaka site is greenfields - the very type of holding where the council proposes to restrict development.
“Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s Karaka campus is a major development opportunity, and it will provide national and regional economic, social and environmental benefits. The future development strategy has significant implications for our plans for our growth in New Zealand,” Rhodes’ presentation to the council said.
“The future development strategy does not accommodate Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s innovative on-site infrastructure solutions or private funding of infrastructure,” it said, telling how its Karaka site has the potential to become a major employment hub.
The current plan is for the Karaka campus to provide up to 14,000 to 18,000 high-quality jobs in several decades.
“Phase one alone could accommodate up to 1600 jobs at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and require the skills and resources of approximately 700 to 800 jobs for all or part of its construction,” Rhodes’ presentation said.
The company, which has a $14b market cap on the NZX, chose this site because of its proximity to planned infrastructure - train station, hospitals, schools and new homes in Drury, it said.
“We are submitting a plan change in late 2023. Development is planned over 30 to 40 years.”
One observer said an executive from the company was stronger in its verbal submission but a Fisher & Paykel Healthcare spokeswoman only said the company might suffer.
“The future development strategy has significant implications for our plans for our growth in New Zealand,” the spokeswoman told the Herald today.
The Property Council, NZ’s biggest listed developer and investor Kiwi Property Group, Classic Homes’ Peter Cooney, and many others made submissions against the same plan.
“I thought he was going to hit someone,” said one submitter at last month’s verbal hearing, describing the strength of feeling from one development chief.
The Property Council, in a submission signed by luxury apartment developer Martin Cooper, “expressed deep concern about the proposed restrictions and delays to new greenfield development, as well as our disappointment with the quality of consultation and engagement to date. We strongly recommended that Auckland Council pause the future development strategy, in order to re-engage with the property sector and develop a revised future development strategy that meets Auckland’s future needs”.
Any future strategy should include housing affordability as a policy objective and work with the property sector to establish improved and more accurate development capacity and geographic modelling.
The council should “urgently reconsider their proposed approach to restricting or delaying greenfield development. At minimum continue the greenfield development strategy already established in the Auckland Unitary Plan,” it said.
It must also reconsider the proposed use of infrastructure triggers and adopt a more flexible approach to providing infrastructure for greenfield developments and use the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act to fund and finance infrastructure to support new development, the proposal said.
“At a high level, we recommend that Auckland Council pause the draft future development strategy and instead develop a revised approach,” the Property Council said.
David Schwartfeger, Kiwi’s Drury development director, said his submission supported development growth near transit-oriented sites or nodes, taking a more positive stance.
“Take time to get the process right,” Schwartfeger’s submission said.
The future development strategy “will ultimately inform how we house our children and provide jobs for their future”, his submission said. The strategy would be a guide for the next 30 years of Auckland’s growth.
“Currently there is a waiting list of people who can’t speak to this panel today. They represent homes, jobs and investment in Auckland,” Schwartfeger’s submission said.
Classic’s Peter Cooney said the proposed strategy sets out a proposed framework for urban development of Auckland which “reflects a fundamental change in the direction initially charted through the Auckland Plan and subsequently reinforced through the Auckland Unitary Plan.
“The effect of the future development strategy is to fundamentally slow down, defer or remove future greenfield development in some manner suggesting that, at least until the 2030s, Auckland’s growth can be successfully managed solely within the existing urban area,” he said.
If the proposal came in, it would trigger the unintended consequences of further constraining residential and employment land supply, further exacerbating congestion issues in Auckland by not locating employment land close to where people live, significantly and negatively impacting housing affordability through land supply constraint and having a demonstrable negative impact on the economic development of Auckland and the development sector, Cooney said.
Auckland Council wants to stamp out the development of greenfield sites, saying its future development strategy “sets out the big picture vision for how and where we should grow over the next 30 years to achieve the best outcomes for Tāmaki Makaurau”. It cited the Government’s new law to demand more housing intensification as well as climate change as drivers.
“There are many ways cities can grow. We propose that most new housing and business development be in the existing city near town centres, good public transport services and jobs, rather than spread out across the region. We also propose to have less growth at the edge of the city. Focusing growth in our existing urban areas, rather than more growth on the edges, results in improvements to the environment, the economy, and people’s wellbeing,” the council says.
“The population is expected to continue to grow by around 520,800 people to a total of 2,230,800 and will require around 200,000 additional homes. However, this is a time of many uncertainties: climate change, weather events, environmental degradation, the impacts of the Covid–19 pandemic and future major infrastructure projects,” the consultation document says.
These uncertainties are challenging society to examine how we live and grow. Then there is the central government-driven legislative programme, particularly through the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020, Medium Density Residential Standards and environmental and climate legislation, the council said.
“To make sure that we build on its strengths and deal with this significant uncertainty, we need to plan for how and where Tāmaki Makaurau will grow. This is the role of the Future Development Strategy. It replaces the Development Strategy 2018 and the Future Urban Land Supply Strategy 2017,” the council 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.
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