Apartments next step for Mt Wellington quarry development

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The first apartment block will rise soon at Stonefields, the former Mt Wellington quarry where hundreds of houses have been built in the creation of a new suburb.

Saltus, a 44-unit block with two and three-bedroom apartments each with two carparks, will be built on the former quarry site and be marketed by Barfoot & Thompson which expects $580,000 to $850,000 for each property.

Barfoot managing director Peter Thompson said Aucklanders would have to accept a new way of living because land was scarce and apartments would fill a growing gap in the city's property market.

"Lack of choice for buyers is a primary issue across the city," he said.

"Adding to this, there are very few if any of these new, spacious and high-specification apartments available on the city fringe.

"The listing of these new apartments will help to ease some of the supply issues in this particular sector of the market in the short term."

"Properties like Saltus and the future high-density and mixed-use buildings planned for Stonefields are part of the solution for housing Auckland's rapidly increasing population in the coming decades," he said.

Auckland would need 330,000 more dwellings in the next 30 years for a projected population of two million-plus.

"We simply don't have the quarter acre [1000sq m] blocks to do that any more," Mr Thompson said.

Building consents at their lowest levels in about 20 years.

Hugh Pavletich, a Christchurch developer, has fought for years to get land freed for development and says ring-fencing Christchurch and creating scarce land supply on the fringes forced residents to build on softer land to the east of the city.

Construction of the new Saltus apartment block at Stonefields is due to finish late next year.

Fletcher Residential has built and sold more than 200 houses at Stonefields, a project owned by Todd Property Group.

The $2 billion-plus development is by far the biggest new Auckland housing scheme to start from scratch in the middle of well-established city suburbs.

It is being built on an area roughly the same size as downtown Auckland.

STONEFIELDS

* 110ha site at Mt Wellington.
* $2b creation of new suburb.
* 2600 houses/apartments planned.
* 6500 people to live there.
* First apartments next year.