Sir Peter Jackson turns back time at Shelly Bay

Famous film-maker Sir Peter Jackson and his partner Dame Fran Walsh have asked the community to bear with them as they work to return Shelly Bay to its natural beauty.

The couple purchased the prime waterfront real estate in Wellington three months ago after a controversial $500 million housing development planned there by developer Ian Cassels was scrapped.

Signs have now been installed along the fence line of the old construction site featuring a message from Jackson and Walsh.

“Please bear with us during the landscaping and planting of both bays. This will take some time, but we look forward to welcoming you back as soon as it’s finished.”

The old officers’ mess could be turned into art studios. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The landscape is barren and scarred from earthworks that were almost complete when the development was canned.

But there is a hive of activity around the Chocolate Fish Cafe, which hasn’t been able to open at the site since a suspicious fire destroyed a building across the road in June.

Chocolate Fish Cafe co-owner John Pennington has gone from thinking his business was on the rocks to something that feels more like winning the Lotto.

The cafe now has new carpet and bathrooms, a fresh lick of paint, and will eventually have a new carpark area thanks to the “new landlords”, who also want to restore the building’s original 1892 exterior, Pennington said.

“It’s our understanding that the whole place [Shelly Bay] will be open to the public, so there will be places for picnics, people bringing fish and chips, and that sort of thing.

“As far as we understand, they basically just want the whole area to be planted with native greens and for the Chocolate Fish Cafe to prosper.”

Chocolate Fish Cafe owner John Pennington hopes to re-open the cafe in mid-December. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Pennington hopes to re-open the cafe in December.

Meanwhile, the old officers’ mess, which is currently located next to a sizeable mound of dirt, could be turned into art studios, Pennington understood.

Various community groups in Miramar have offered to help with Shelly Bay’s transformation, he said.

“They really just want to come out and help plant and do something as a community to not only thank the new landlords but make them feel part of it, which I think is great.”

Members of the Miramar Prison Garden, which is located on the hill above Shelly Bay, greeted their new neighbours with a couple of jars of honey from their hives.

Community garden volunteer Kate Curtis said they offered to help Walsh and Jackson with any planting.

“As you can imagine, our members are pretty good with a spade and growing stuff, so if they do want to reach out to the community to help them with replanting bees, we are very keen to get involved.”

How Jackson got his way with Shelly Bay

Jackson has been a constant figure in the Shelly Bay saga.

He has sent scathing letters to former Wellington mayor Justin Lester over plans for the bay. His companies bankrolled Andy Foster (also opposed to the housing development) in what was a successful bid to win the mayoralty in 2019, as well as an iwi group that pursued legal action.

Jackson owns tens of millions of dollars worth of commercial property in Miramar tied to his Wētā group of film-making companies.

He actually once looked at the possibility of creating a movie museum at Shelly Bay, but the idea fell flat around 2012.

A 2019 email to Lester, provided to the Herald, showed Jackson and Walsh were invited to a meeting with Cassels and iwi leaders to talk about how they might “be involved” in the development.

“Fran and I are not, and never will be, interested in associating with a team who seem determined to turn Shelly Bay into something that has been described as ‘Sausalito’ but which, in reality, will invoke blocks of Soviet-era apartments dumped on Wellington’s picturesque peninsula,” Jackson wrote.

Jackson acknowledged something needed to happen in Shelly Bay, “but we believe any development should be sympathetic to the environment and, as a unique piece of foreshore, Shelly Bay should retain a large public use component”.

Now that Jackson and Walsh own the land, they are turning that belief into reality.

Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh purchased the land three months ago. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.