By ANNE GIBSON
An extremely narrow 56-unit apartment building proposed for 20 Wyndham St in Auckland's CBD would increase wind speeds in the streets below, an expert says.
Allan Kirk, senior architectural planner (urban design) at the Auckland City Council, said that although the proposed 15-level tower was "exceptionally slender" and only 7m wide at one point, it would still cause an increase in wind speeds in the streets around it, so a full wind-tunnel test and report would have to be carried out before it got building consent.
The proposal to build the tower went before the Auckland City Council last week.
Wyndham Trust has applied to have its application to build the tower considered on a non-notified basis. The tower is planned for the site directly in front of the historic Bluestone Store - the subject of a Weekend Herald feature last month.
The certificate of title submitted to the council with the application to build the tower shows Tramco Albert St as one of the tower's most recent owners.
Tramco Services applied to the council last month to shift its heritage bonus floorspace allocation on the Bluestone Store to the new car-parking building on Albert St.
The tower would front both Wyndham St and Durham Lane and be built on a now-vacant site.
Mr Kirk cited a wind-assessment report conducted in July. It said shelter would be provided by "many large buildings around the site, and the two and three-storey buildings directly on either side of the proposed tower would act as podiums and prevent windy corners at the base of the development".
Winds of change in Wyndham St
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