Manukau

By ROBYN WELSH

Lifestyle blocks off Redoubt Rd, refurbished homes little more than 15 years old, executive-style new homes and planned multi-level apartments are the dominant flavours of the Manukau residential area of South Auckland.

It's debatable exactly where this sprawling area begins and ends but its focus is most definitely on the Manukau City Centre with its variety of shops and entertainment. There's no argument about the high profile the area is currently enjoying with the recently opened Te Irirangi Drive link between Manukau city and Howick, and the housing developments planned both nearby and in the city centre proper.

Manukau Central, which is split by the southern motorway, still includes state housing on the city centre side, but work is about to start on the area's first multi-level residential development.

Tower One of the 17-level Renaissance Centre apartment development is currently selling off the plans and, when completed by November next year, it will be the highest building in Manukau city. It may also be the only such development in an area that is almost exclusively industrial and commercially zoned land. It will occupy the last pocket of land left when the Manukau City Centre was developed - a grassed site on the corner of Ronwood Dr and Osterley Ave.

Meanwhile, the established upper-end subdivisions of Totara Heights, Silkwood Heights, Goodwood Heights, The Gardens and Chapel Downs are still the dream of buyers in neighbouring suburbs who talk of trading up - literally and financially - by moving "up the hill." Such is the demand that older homes in these areas, built in the early 1980s, are already being upgraded for increasingly discerning buyers.