Sitting in the plush boardroom of her 14th floor office in the heart of Auckland's CBD, Mai Chen is talking up Auckland.

"I'm not asking for a flash hotel reception room, but is it too much to expect a shelter that actually sheltered?", writes Brian Rudman. "Would it be so hard, at each bus stop, to have a large route map indicating where each bus went?"

Strip-club owners the Chow brothers are selling the prime central-city Palace Hotel site where they had planned to build a hotel and brothel.

In 1966, the shiny new 18-storey, glass-clad Auckland City administration building might not have been the world's tallest skyscraper, but it was the highest in NZ, writes Brian Rudman.

The fraud committed by an Auckland man who stole money from the sports club he chaired was only discovered when cheques he wrote to cover up his offending bounced.

A West Auckland man has pleaded guilty to the theft of $155,000 from a sports club.

The cost of refurbishing the Civic Building on Aotea Square is estimated at more than $70m, which Auckland Council property officers say is double the cost of replacing it with a building twice the floor size.

Editorial: Housing could be the big issue in the coming election. It has been a "sleeper" for some years as young couples seeking their first home have struggled at auctions against investors.

A real estate agency boss has backed a call this week by finance minister Bill English to relax rules designed to stamp out so-called "shoebox apartments".

Place your bets - celebrities and politicians are among the likeliest to take the Auckland mayoral chains from Len Brown next time around.

Auckland Council is under fire from business groups to speed-up work and funding for an east-west road freight corridor between Mt Wellington and Onehunga.

Plans for one of the country's most expensive transport projects - a $760m extension of Auckland's motorway network - will go under the microscope today.

Inorganic collections - long adored by bargain hunters and despised by berm lovers - are being chucked out.

In the parks, beaches, back gardens and forests of the country, non-scientists can help with with a raft of research projects.

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has voted to slash funding to the Westpac rescue helicopter service, three days after assuring the service he would sort out a $900,000 funding gap.

Would-be homeowners in Auckland can be optimistic after new figures show the number of consents for new houses, sections and apartments in Auckland are on track.

His farm-registered SUV and makeshift lean-to with rudimentary kitchen shelves has occupied a prime corner of Auckland's waterfront for more than a year.

A recruitment agency has blocked the former lover of embattled Auckland Mayor Len Brown from returning to a council advisory panel - sparing him further public embarrassment over her reappointment.

The resting place of legendary All Blacks coach Sir Fred Allen has been defended by the Environment Court, which has cancelled plans for factories next to a cemetery.

Auckland Council has told activist Penny Bright to pay $29,000 owed in rates within 10 days or risk losing her Kingsland home.

The woman who had an affair with Auckland Mayor Len Brown has spoken in support of cyber-bullying laws and that she was being stalked on social media.

Len Brown might feel the tide has turned on the sins of the recent past, but is now juggling a budget that will determine if his vision is real or not.