New Napier South apartment block will have 30 units and just five car parks

Work is under way clearing 124 Wellesley Rd, Napier, to make way for a three-level apartment block of 30 units. Photo / Warren Buckland

Work has started on the site of a three-level, 30 apartment complex which is going ahead despite allowance for just five on-site car parking spaces in an area beset with parking issues near the Napier Medical Centre.

Deciding against public notification of the application, the Napier City Council granted the consents relating to 124 Wellesley Rd, which was most recently occupied as an overflow storage facility for Pak’nSave Napier supermarket, and previously was the site of a State Insurance workshop and yard.

On the seaward side of the road, between Raffles and Sale Sts and about 300 metres from the medical centre, it is on land zoned fringe commercial with residential zoning on the opposite side of the road.

Street parking has been an issue in Wellesley Rd for some years, made worse last year when the Ministry of Social Development opened Tuhinapo, a new building on the corner of Wellesley and Kennedy Rds, with up to 300 Work and Income and other agency staff and allowing for parking for 106 mainly ministry vehicles.

In May last year, Hawke’s Bay Today reported staff were having to park their private vehicles up to 1km away because of the kerbside congestion. The congestion was impacting other businesses and people going to appointments at the medical centre.

The development is being done for Toiora NZ, which has moved into the provision of residential accommodation on the back of success with its School of Hard Knocks, a programme targeting the 16-24 years age group through sports, education and cultural identity, and which spawned a TV series of the same name fronted by All Blacks great and mental wellbeing advocate Sir John Kirwan.

A director is professional company director Hugo Fitzsimmons, who founded “SOHK” and the TV series in New Zealand after seeing a similar project in the UK.

He is also a director of the company that owns the site and has been a director of other companies that have owned the site over the last 20 years.

Extensive reports show council staff, under delegated authority and under sections of the Resource Management Act, determined the application for resource consent could be processed “non-notified”, without need for consultation. Part of the officer’s recommendation said that no mandatory (public) notification was required and effects on owners and occupiers of land adjacent to the site had to be disregarded.

Attempts by Hawke’s Bay Today to contact Toiora NZ have not yet been successful, and further comment has been sought from both the council and Government housing and communities agency Kāinga Ora.