Dudley Barton: his company sold family land for $21m. Photo / Michael Craig
Dudley Barton: his company sold family land for $21m. Photo / Michael Craig
Once, Dudley Barton worked in the searing heat inside his family's tomato glasshouses and tried to stop mangroves by pulling them out of the water in front of his home.
Now, a company owned by him and brother Rodney is about to bank $21 million from the sale of theirWiri horticulture property - an amount more than he originally envisaged.
"It's still not really sinking in. Maybe when I get the money in my pocket, it might," said the retired grower after the 2.4ha site was sold conditionally to Stride Property Group's industrial venture Industre Property.
He plans to buy a one-level home on a flat site on Waiheke Island, between Oneroa and Onetangi but says those are proving hard to find, even though he watches listings closely.
The deal on 14-20 Favona Rd is due to settle on March 29 and Barton said costs and commission would be deducted, leaving him with around $10m.
In 2019, he complained to the Herald that he wanted the industrial land rezoned residential because he thought he could get more for it. But industry experts estimated the prices were now about level, due to the pandemic pushing up industrial land prices because of rising needs for storage and warehousing.
Dudley Barton at one of his decaying glasshouses. Photo / Chris Tarpey
The never-married man living in what most would consider a type of paradise, down a long driveway off Favona Rd on a flat waterfront site surrounded by trees, feels as if he's in hell.
He complained about the failure of a tomato-growing business in vast long-disused glasshouses, now derelict, behind his house.
Barton wouldn't then sell for what he estimated could be a $10m valuation for light industrial-zoned land, compared to $20m he expected if it was zoned for terraced housing and apartments.
Auckland Council valued the Bartons' place at only $4.2m: • $1m for 5390sq m,14 Favona Rd [rates $3400]; • $1.1m for 6649sq m at 14a Favona Rd [rates $1900]; • $2.1m for 1.1ha at 20 Favona Rd [rates $4800].
"It'd be double the price if it was rezoned. Why should we sell for less? I'd like to relax more, go to Europe, Asia, South America, buy a new car, play golf," Barton said three years ago.
But now the company is getting $21m, he says he won't quite believe it until the money is with Barton Growers.
The Barton property, sold to Stride's business. Photo / Chris Tarpey
Rates of around $10,000 a year have been funded by savings and income from a house he has rented.
He has previously refused to pay rates based on the existing land zoning, claiming that even as light industrial he was being charged too much because the assessment of value was too high.
That got to the point where he said the council claimed $400,000 in unpaid rates and penalties, resulting in threats of a court action. Eventually, an agreement was reached and he paid a much lesser sum but he still remains sore about that.
Barton says he'll be pleased to pack up and leave after the deal brokered by CBRE's Bruce Catley, Brent McGregor and Alex Divers.
"We can't touch the money until it's in the account of the company and the company is liquidated and the company is wound up," Barton said.
He said in October 1.2ha of the land was up for sale.
Tomato glasshouses on the property that overlooks the waterfront. Photo / Chris Tarpey
Barton first tried to sell half the site in 1996 and said it had therefore taken 26 years to close the deal.
"My brother was a bit reluctant to start with," he said, adding that Rodney eventually agreed all the land should be sold.
Stride said in an NZX notice this month it wanted the land because it is "near the Favona Rd interchange with the Southwestern Motorway and has ready access to the airport. Uncommitted indicative development costs are expected to be approximately $35m to $40m".
Goodman Property Trust is building 36,000sq m of floor area for Mainfreight at the Favona Estate, 70 Favona Rd, not far from the Bartons' site. That will consolidate operations from a number of other sites. The 7ha site was, like the Barton land, formerly a market garden.
