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Residents are up in arms over a plan to build a retirement village on a 3ha chunk of former Selwyn College land.
The site, worth about $5 million, was "disposed" of after being deemed surplus to the school's requirements in the late 1990s.
The current leaseholder, Education Holdings - of which Paul Webb from the TV show Dragons' Den is a director - has completed early-stage consultation ahead of applying to change the land's zoning.
It wants to build a multi-level, 200-unit retirement village on the Kohimarama Rd site. It is understood the papers could be filed with Auckland City Council as soon as today.
Association to Conserve and Nurture Education Zones spokesman Charles Lowndes said residents were surprised to find out about the plan.
Hundreds turned up to two meetings the group held on the issue, he said, and a third is planned for this month.
"People are stunned that this has occurred," said Mr Lowndes, an Eastern Bays real estate agent.
He said the group was worried there were few sites on which new schools could be built to accommodate future growth and it wanted the education zoning to remain.
Mr Webb said his company had nothing to do with the ministry's decision to sell the land.
He said Ngati Whatua acquired the land from the Crown following a public consultation in the 1990s and Education Holdings later arranged an initial 150-year lease.
"We were just approached to see if we had an interest in the site - we don't get involved in Ministry of Education decisions." He said the consent process would be open and the public would be able to have their say.
The Herald has obtained an email between education officials questioning whether the sale of the land should have been reconsidered.
The email, with the subject line "Possible 'hot' issue", was sent in 2002 to a senior figure in the Education Ministry's property team, Brenda Radford, and read: "Why we didn't hold it for some other use at the time is beyond me!"
The document, released under the Official Information Act, blanked out the name of the sender.
The message was copied to a Terry Bates, who replied to Ms Radford: "I think we need to flag this issue to the minister along with an analysis of the risks and costs of interrupting/reconsidering the disposal processes".
The ministry said the disposal process was not being reconsidered. Selwyn College had more than 15ha before the sale, compared to an average of 9ha for Auckland schools.
Selwyn College board of trustees chairman Tur Borren said the school got half the profit but the sale was a ministry decision.
