KEY POINTS:
Developer Tony Gapes wants to build 1000 apartments, including two 13-storey blocks, on the headland at Orakei under a $1 billion plan for the coastal site.
Mr Gapes yesterday said the cost of unlocking the natural features at Orakei for public enjoyment was a more intense style of development.
Under his latest plans, developed in conjunction with the Auckland City Council, about 40 per cent of the coastal edge would be turned into public open space with esplanade reserves and boardwalks.
In exchange for donating esplanade land and making public improvements at a cost of $100 million to his Redwood Group, Mr Gapes is seeking permission for more intense development, which he says is needed to make the project commercially viable.
The latest proposal follows several setbacks for Mr Gapes at Orakei.
Plans for 42 apartments at 246 Orakei Rd and 146 apartments in five blocks at 228 Orakei Rd ran into huge opposition on the northern slopes of Remuera. Planning commissioners rejected the development.
These two developments had a gross floor area of 20,000sq m. The new development would cover 42 per cent of the headland with a gross floor area of 95,000sq m.
The plan is part of a masterplan, to be publicly notified by the council in October.
The Redwood Group has drawn up three options for the headland in conjunction with architects Jasmax and landscape architects Boffa Miskell.
The other two options are to carry on developing Orakei in an ad hoc way under existing planning rules or build the same number of apartments in lower but bulkier buildings. Redwood favours fewer but taller buildings.
A core part of the plan involves building a community based around the Orakei railway station. This would include covering the train station with buildings and a plaza and providing about 20,000sq m for shops, restaurants, cafes, health facilities, a creche and commercial purposes.
Narrow and busy Orakei Rd would be widened, straightened and raised for rail electrification. The eastern transport corridor would be future-proofed for extra rail lines or a motorway across Hobson Bay.
Mr Gapes acknowledged he had taken a fair amount of flak for some of his developments. But unlike projects such as the Scene Apartments in downtown Auckland developed within existing zoning rules, he said Orakei offered the opportunity to set aside the rules and come up with a solution that was best for Auckland.
The goal was to make Orakei a place the whole of Auckland was proud of.
"Auckland is a top 10 city in which to live and is the third largest city by area in the world.
"That spread and the resultant traffic cannot continue and is why Auckland City is seeking more intense development along corridors like this," Mr Gapes said.
Auckland City Mayor John Banks has criticised other Gapes developments and called the plans for 228 Orakei Rd "frightening". He said he wanted to hear what Aucklanders had to say on the new proposal, and did not want to comment at this stage.
