Point Chevalier home surrounded by New World supermarket construction: Resident, 93, claims he’s being ‘forced out’

The New World construction site on Great North Road in Point Chevalier, with inset of 12 Parr Road Auckland New Zealand Herald photograph by Jason Dorday 27 June 2024

A 93-year-old Aucklander is yet to find a buyer for his Pt Chevalier home totally surrounded by construction work on a New World supermarket and multi-level car park.

The home on 12 Parr Rd North has been in Albert John Andrews’ family for 70 years.

Now it sits alone as Parr Rd North’s only inhabited house.

Businesses have replaced homes once filled with young families, with Foodstuffs the latest to move in with plans for a New World store.

In 2022, the supermarket giant paid $2.5 million for the house next door to Andrews’ home.

Then, last year, it spent $9.3m buying land behind and on the other side of Andrews’ house that had formerly contained the Point Chevalier RSA and lawn bowls fields.

The New World construction site on Great North Road in Point Chevalier, with inset of 12 Parr Road. Herald photograph by Jason Dorday 27 June 2024

A Foodstuffs spokeswoman said the group also offered to buy Andrews’ property at above its Auckland Council valuation, which is $1.6m.

Stuff earlier reported Foodstuffs offered Andrews $2.5m for his home, claiming the nonagenarian refused, thinking the offer was too low.

Andrews refuted this to the Herald, however, saying he was not a holdout but was instead being driven out.

“We haven’t had an offer,” he said about Foodstuffs.

Instead, Andrews believed Foodstuffs’ construction work has disrupted his family and failed to properly compensate them.

His adult children live at the home, while Andrews lives separately in New Windsor.

The children had earlier had no intention of moving out until Foodstuffs started planning its supermarket, he said.

Now daily noise, dust and heavy construction rattle their lives and the family listed the home for sale more than six months ago, he said.

Andrews also worries whether construction work might damage the house.

“It’s not going to be doing any good”, he said.

When the Herald visited the home last month, tip trucks carrying dirt rumbled in and out of the neighbouring property, while several high-vis workers came and went.

Behind the home’s backyard, large concrete pillars jutted from the ground where a basement and multi-level car park is taking shape.

The car park will stand where sunrises had once been visible over the lawn bowls greens and where the family once took in sweeping Auckland views, Andrews’ son Kevin said.

Foodstuffs says it offered to buy the home

Concept designs for the Point Chevalier New World supermarket. Photo / Supplied

Foodstuffs said it had been working closely with the family, other neighbours and the community throughout the build process for the new supermarket.

“This included the offer to purchase, at above CV, direct neighbours of the site, including 12 Parr Road,” the spokeswoman said.

“We respect the owner of 12 Parr Road’s decision not to progress negotiations with us at the time and to instead list their commercially-zoned land on the open market.”

She said the group had “maintained a close and amicable relationship with the family” and had worked hard to “minimise any impact while meeting all the conditions set out in our resource consent”.

Work was “on track to open this exciting new addition to the Point Chevalier community towards the second half of 2025″, she said.

‘No bites’ but family positive home will sell

An aerial view of Albert Andrews' Point Chevalier home and the New World construction site. Photo / Jason Dorday

With a lifetime of Point Chevalier memories, the family wants to find another three-to-four-bedroom home in the suburb.

They can only buy again if they sell first, Andrews said.

And despite house sales slumping across Auckland and New Zealand this year, Andrews remains sure his land is valuable.

“Nothing is happening anywhere, it’s a waiting time,” he said of the market.

“But I’m telling you it’s going to go, its the only bit of land up in Point Chev right by the shops.”

Shirley Daniel from Beckett real estate is the selling agent and said the property has yet to attract serious “bites” from buyers.

A local vet clinic had been among those interested. The site could have allowed the clinic to expand to keep animals overnight because the lack of neighbours meant they wouldn’t have had neighbours complaining about barking dogs, Daniel said.

The Andrews family had been asking a high price in the current market, she said.

Yet the property’s value is in its potential as a commercial site, capable of being developed into multi-storeys, she said.

A few doors down, a 3238sq m land section is now on sale with resource consent for an eight-level building complex.

The consent allows for a mix of 177 apartments with lower-floor commercial spaces.

Point Chevalier’s shopping district along Great North Rd with its major bus route is also tipped as a future development hot spot, Daniel said.

“[The Andrews’ land] is going to be a commercial business and what a brilliant position to be in, right behind New World,” she said.

$2.5 million goes a long way in Pt Chev in 2024

A renovated home at 13 Dignan St in Point Chevalier sitting just a few blocks from the coastline is on sale for $2.1m.

When Foodstuffs began talking to the Andrews’ family in early-to-mid 2022, Point Chevalier house prices were coming off record highs, Daniel said.

Yet quality homes can be snapped up in 2024 for considerably less.

Property website OneRoof shows a renovated three-bedroom Point Chevalier home at 73 Walmer Rd on sale for $1.6m with the headline “Make an offer!” in bold in the advertisement.

A four-bedroom home with 480sq m of floor space just a few blocks from the Point Chev coastline at 13 Dignan St is also on sale for $2.1m, while a beautiful three-bedroom home at 4 Humariri St is another with a $2.1m asking price.

Real estate agent Daniel said if the Andrews’ home didn’t sell soon, it would definitely go in the next market upturn.

She sees the eight-level development on the corner of Great North Rd and Parr Rd North as the bellwether.

Once investors got that project running again, “that’s when you know the market’s going to move” and the Andrews’ property would be in demand, she said.

“And so at this stage, unfortunately, we’re going to just have to put up with the noise and the development because nobody’s looking this way,” she said.