My Account
The community will be able to have a say on the proposal to build an eight-storey ‘vertical retirement village’ in front of Ōrewa’s Nautilus apartment block.
Developer Rick Martin of K Rd Investments, who also developed the Nautilus, applied for resource consent to build the complex at 7 Tamariki Ave earlier this year (HM May 16). The company owns the site.
Last month Auckland Council advised that it has decided to publicly notify the resource consent application although K Rd Investments had asked for no notification.
Since the application went in, there have been refinements to the design, made in response to issues noted by Council’s urban designer and urban design panel.
However, eight storeys is still proposed but the refinements mean that this now falls within the maximum allowable height limit for the Business Town Centre zoning, of 27m.
The height will potentially affect views towards the sea for units of the Nautilus, including the ones at the front, on floors 4-8.
The application notes that the views of existing buildings are not guaranteed and the proposal is of a height and scale anticipated by the zoning.
Martin’s concept is to provide independent living and retirement village options, with services such as in-home care contracted out, for occupants aged 65 plus.
In his decision on notification, dated August 17, duty commissioner Dr Lee Beattie says he believes “the proposed building form, design, layout, scale, orientation and appearance is likely to create more than minor adverse effects on the wider environment including in the street scene and the wider town centre”.
“While the Town Centre Zone does enable buildings of this scale, bulk and mass, it also requires built form to contribute positively to the design and appearance of the wider townscape, ensuring that buildings do not adversely affect the visual qualities that make up the town centre, including the provision of blank walls to the street scene and other elevation treatments,” the decision says. “The building also creates a potentially poor relationship with the street, especially at ground level.”
Dr Beattie says that the proposal also “creates a poor relationship with the adjoining Nautilus apartment building, both in terms of visual privacy issues, but also in terms of built form relationship between the two buildings.”
When exactly the application will be publicly notified is not yet determined, but it will be placed on Council’s website (search for ‘notified resource consents’) and Hibiscus Matters will make it public.
