Driveway row upsets top street

Tania Ropati, with son Zico, in front of her Herne Bay home with the contentious villa at left. Picture / Greg Bowker

Herne Bay residents are upset at plans to partly demolish an Edwardian villa for a driveway - six months after the demolition of a 100-year-old house in the same street.

Shayne Elliott, a New Zealand businessman working in Egypt, paid $2.7 million in June for the villa at 73 Marine Parade to provide a second driveway to a new house he owns at 69a, which is behind another house, 71 Marine Parade.

Mr Elliott plans to slice a section off the villa, including a side verandah, and remove two protected trees in the way of the driveway.

Marine Parade is covered by sweeping changes aimed at preserving heritage suburbs. When they were introduced in May last year, Mayor Dick Hubbard said, "We are deadly serious about protecting the villas, the bungalows, the historic nature of Auckland."

Tania Ropati, who is renovating her villa at 71 Marine Parade, said no one should be "able to chop a perfectly good villa in half for the sake of a spare driveway. It will end up looking like a miner's cottage."

Furthermore, she was furious that the council would consider the removal of two protected trees after being made to move a new driveway on her property one metre back to protect the trees' roots. She was forced by the council to get an arborist's report that said one of the trees, a 5m lemonwood, was an "average example in good general health".

An Auckland City Council spokeswoman said the council had received correspondence from three people about the development.

Ted Leng, of the Herne Bay Peninsula Group, which lobbied for greater protection of heritage homes, said he was disappointed the council would even consider the application.

"It's just another example of the council not really trying to preserve the area," Mr Leng said.

But, speaking from Cairo yesterday, Mr Elliott said the plans involved "relatively minor modifications" to the villa in keeping with the style and street appeal of the house.

Mr Elliott said he bought 73 Marine Parade to extend the grounds of his house at 69a and provide private access because the current driveway was shared by three neighbours.

Mr Elliott said he planned to return to New Zealand with his wife and daughter in the "next year or two" to live at Marine Parade.

He said he had as much interest as other neighbours in the attractive nature of Herne Bay, "but I don't think that precludes reasonable and sensitive renovation".

The application included an arborist's report about the two protected trees. It said the 11m honey locust and the lemonwood were "either seriously structurally flawed, of poor health or of no aesthetic value".

Mr Elliott's project manager, Rob Lund, said he had been available to hear neighbours' concerns.

"In making application to alter the villa we have been as transparent as possible. We have been particularly concerned about maintaining the heritage aspect of the building," he said.

Mike Watson, the council heritage architect who approved the demolition of 29 Marine Parade on the word of a house wrecker that it was built after 1950, has discussed the plans for 73 Marine Parade with Mr Lund and architect Matt Chaplin.


What the arborists say

* Bevan Potts, for Tania Ropati: "The lemonwood is an average example in good general health."

* Sue Roff, for Shayne Elliott: "Those trees proposed for removal are either seriously structurally flawed, of poor health or of no aesthetic value."