Suburb fights for style

By BERNARD ORSMAN

A group of Grey Lynn villa and bungalow dwellers are campaigning to tone down a swath of apartments featuring trendy interiors designed by celebrity Sally Ridge.

Residents have formed Positively Grey Lynn to oppose plans by property developer Pat Rippin to build 300 apartments in a small pocket around Surrey Cres.

Grey Lynn is the latest community to protest at a loophole in the district plan that can give developers virtual carte blanche to build high-rise apartments on commercial land in suburban areas.

Positively Grey Lynn is demanding the Auckland City Council put a freeze on the resource consent process for a 71-unit, five-storey apartment block on Richmond Rd after the council approved the first stage of a nearby development without giving the public a say.

That approval was for 40 apartments on Surrey Cres, called 70 Surrey, which will eventually consist of seven buildings and 230 apartments on a 1.2ha site that slopes down to Chinamans Hill.

Mr Rippin, a survivor of the 1980s property collapse, yesterday said developments such as 70 Surrey, designed by a leading architect and backed by Mayor John Banks, were "not just bloody boxes".

Boutique cafes and other improvements planned would upgrade the area and increase property values, he said.

Mr Rippin saw no need to consult the local community: "What for?" he said.

Gary Deeney, a planning consultant employed by Mr Rippin's property company, the Markham Group, said there was consultation with the church next door to 70 Surrey but it had turned into an argument around the table.

Mr Deeney said he believed that the community would oppose whatever Markham put forward, to try to delay it.

Therefore, his advice to Markham was to build quality developments that neighbours might not like but would at least recognise were better than they could have been.

Members of Positively Grey Lynn feel powerless about what is happening to their inner-city suburb of Edwardian villas and bungalows

Lisa Wolf, whose house in Browning St backs onto the proposed Richmond Rd development, said the intrinsic nature of Grey Lynn was changing without residents' having a say.

The group was not anti-development per se, but the two proposals and a possible third development on Surrey Cres were too much for a small area close to schools, churches and community facilities, she said.

Positively Grey Lynn chairman Todd Andrews has written to the council demanding a freeze on approval for the Richmond Rd and future developments in Grey Lynn until the community is consulted.

"These new developments are out of scale with the predominantly low-rise character of Grey Lynn. They are unsympathetic to the Edwardian architecture so prevalent in our area, and do not relate well to our high-quality streetscape," Mr Andrews wrote.

Council officers plan to meet the group.

Karen Bell, who manages resource-consent issues, said the council was trying to change the district plan to put controls on housing developments on commercial land but it was held up in court by 15 appeals, mostly from developers.