KEY POINTS:
Auckland City Mayor John Banks is furious about a "high-rise monstrosity" replacing the historic Mt Eden Prison where his father, Archie, did time.
Mr Banks says buildings up to 30m high adjacent to the Southern Motorway will block views to Mt Eden (Maungawhau) and be an awful gateway to the city.
The Department of Corrections has approval from council-appointed commissioners to build a new prison on the 4.8ha site. It includes an eight-storey jail block 30m high adjacent to the motorway, a four-storey jail block, new gatehouse, multi-level carpark building and visitor centre.
Approval has also been granted for future projects, including another six-storey jail block and expanding the present remand centre from four to seven storeys. The existing stone-walled jail, built more than 120 years ago, will be preserved and become an administration block.
Mr Banks is unhappy at the Corrections Department for wanting to build up to 30m when the area around the prison has a height limit of 15m.
The site is designated for prison purposes with no restraints on the height or bulk of buildings. Planning commissioners have a role to play setting conditions for any development but the final say rests with Corrections Minister Phil Goff.
Mr Banks has written to Mr Goff saying the council accepts the need for a new prison on the Mt Eden site but opposes buildings twice the height of other developments in the area.
"I would have strongly thought that these prison buildings should have respected and reflected the general height of development that occurs within the community," Mr Banks said. "This is in contrast to the dominant high-rise prison your department is proposing."
He said his father, Archie, a small-time crook who spent much of his life behind bars, would be outraged.
Mr Goff said that as an Aucklander familiar with the area the design work was not an eyesore. The new buildings were designed not to stand out as a prison, the old prison would be made more attractive and the views of Mt Eden from the motorway would be lost for only 1.6 seconds.
He said Corrections had consulted extensively, including 18 meetings with council officers over a period of two-and-a-half years. The nearest neighbour, Auckland Grammar, has approved the project.
In terms of the process, the project had been assessed and approved by the council's urban design panel and been approved by council-appointed planning commissioners, Mr Goff said.
Corrections prison project manager Colin Munn said working through the issues had been a matter of balancing the heritage value of the site with height of buildings and the capacity needed for present and future developments.
Auckland City city development general manager John Duthie said he had made it clear to Corrections and former Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor that the council supported the prison redevelopment but had concerns about high-rise buildings.
"We felt they could have it [the redevelopment] quite intense but felt it should stick to the zonal height, the same as anybody else in the area, at 15m. But because the existing remand wing was about 20m we said, 'Okay, we will stay with 20m'."
