Surf Club building plan revealed

Orewa Surf Club’s plans to rebuild its clubrooms, which have been underway for more than five years, are readied for an imminent resource consent application.

Club chair John Chapman says members are relieved to be “over the hump” with a design ready to go.

The club is rapidly expanding, growing 350 percent in the last 10 years to more than 1000 members, and its facilities are dilapidated as well as being too small for its needs.

Mr Chapman says the planning process was long and involved, with the club getting close to resource consent stage prior to amalgamation, then having to head back to the drawing board after discussions with Auckland Council.

The club is currently awaiting landowner consent, which it hopes will be granted by the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board at its July 4 meeting.

The revised plans show the clubrooms positioned 30 metres back from the current location on Orewa Beach (previously it was around 10m back). A relocatable surf tower is positioned on the foreshore.

The building has also been increased in size to three storeys, but with one storey, to be used for storing lifesaving equipment, almost completely underground. The proposed height is around 9m.

The basement provides gear storage, the ground floor a club lounge, changing rooms and other facilities and the upper storey will be a function room.

Mr Chapman says the footprint of the proposed building, of 875 sqm, has been kept “very close” to that of the current club, in order to reduce visual impact, and he questions Council’s calculations that suggest the existing footprint is 575 sqm.

Most of the changes to the location and design of the clubrooms arose as a result of a report commissioned by Council from Tonkin & Taylor, which was asked to undertake a coastal hazard assessment of the proposed development.

The report, released last April, states that the building needed to be moved “as far landward as practicable” and it was later recommended by coastal engineer Richard Reinen-Hamill, who prepared the report, that the building be pulled back 30m further than initially proposed in order to reduce the risk of erosion and inundation.

Shifting the building will have an impact on the carpark, but Mr Chapman says a proposal prepared by Council’s Parks Design Team showing the carpark returned to grass and parking moved into the area that is currently grassed, while it makes good sense, will never fly because “it would cost millions”.

Mr Chapman says the club are seeking that the resource consent be publicly notified.

“We expect the majority of the community will support it, because the new building will be a fantastic asset for Orewa,” he says.