Three Kings tenants face years of earthwork as quarry apartments get green light

Puketapapa Local Board member Julie Fairey says the board has asked that the special housing area be deferred until the region's master plan is complete. Photo / Dean Purcell

Official queries fast-track approval for Three Kings site facing years of earthworks

The Government has approved a new special housing area for up to 90 apartments - but the tenants will potentially have to tolerate years of a quarry being filled up at their back door.

Prime Minister John Key told reporters after his social housing speech on Wednesday that the Cabinet "just agreed yesterday on part of the Three Kings area as a special housing area".

The decision gives the landowner, Fletcher Building, a fast-track three-month consenting process for a proposed 80 to 90 apartments, with limited notification and appeals. The land on Mt Eden Rd sits at the edge of a quarry which the company plans to fill to create a new 1500-home subdivision.

Puketapapa Local Board chairwoman Julie Fairey said her board asked Auckland Council to defer the special housing area until the completion of a master plan for the whole area, including new connections to the last remaining mountain of the original Three Kings and east-west connections across the quarry site.

"We felt it was premature at this point in the master-planning process." She said it could takes years to fill the old quarry for the rest of the planned development.

"How are you going to undertake a filling operation when you have people potentially living very close to where you are filling?" she asked.

"Fletchers says they have talked to their noise engineers and that's all going to be fine.

"I guess that's all stuff that will be teased out [in the planning process]."

Local resident Greg McKeown questioned the size of the site that he says is just 15ha.

"That's 100 apartments per hectare," he said.

"When Stonefields [another former quarry site] is completed, my understanding is that's going to come in at 20 to 25 dwellings per hectare, so the density from what I can see is four times the density of Stonefields."

Fletchers, the council and Housing Minister Nick Smith all refused to release details of the plan yesterday because it had not yet been signed off by the Governor-General. Dr Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown are due to announce the decision next week.

But Stuart Reed, whose Bed Factory store is one of five businesses that have been operating on the site, said Fletchers' planned apartments would rise four floors above street level along Mt Eden Rd, and eventually descend five levels below street level in the quarry behind.

"It's going to be like mole-dwelling," he said.

Henry Gough, who runs the next-door Eiffel En Eden cafe, said he refused a cash offer to buy out the rest of his lease, which runs until the end of this year.

"So many local people are worried about if the new residential project finishes, how many people are they going to bring in and the impact on traffic on the local roads," he said.

Ms Fairey said Fletchers originally proposed between 100 and 135 apartments in the special housing area, but had now reduced that to between 80 and 90.