'Brutal' design defended

Developer Tony Gapes says he talked to council planners about building three tall apartment buildings along the Auckland waterfront - rather than three shorter and wider buildings which have attracted criticism.

However, controversy over a downtown office building and height restrictions ruled out the idea.

The Scene apartments in Beach Rd, being built by Mr Gapes' Redwood Group, have come under fire from design lobby group Urban Auckland for hogging waterfront views.

Urban Auckland member Nigel Cook said that with a bit of insight and discussion, the apartments could have been taller and slimmer, "not bad-mannered brutal intrusions".

Urban Auckland put up a billboard opposite the project, saying: "these apartments didn't need to block the view. Our council planners have let us down".

But Mr Gapes said he discussed with council planners the idea of building three, 34-storey towers rather than "three short fat ones" that complied with the district plan.

Mr Gapes said the idea of building taller, thinner towers to leave views for those behind came at a sensitive time for the council, amid the public furore over extra storeys on the 34-storey PricewaterhouseCoopers waterfront tower.

There was a 50m height restriction on the Scene project's Beach Rd site.

"But the planners are not being given any latitude to agree to these ideas," he said.

Mr Gapes praised the planners and the urban design panel for making improvements to the site, including a public walkway.

He said Melbourne, where Redwood was building apartment blocks, essentially had no density or height rules, but developers were required to present a concept plan through the council to a design panel for scrutiny before a publicly notified hearing. It was a more flexible and robust system, he said.

The chairwoman of the city council's environment, heritage and urban form committee, Christine Caughey, has asked for a review of the urban design panel to give it more teeth to review significant residential and commercial developments.