Nine dwellings will be built on a 1012sqm site in Centreway Road, Orewa – three times the number allowed under the site’s Mixed Housing Urban zoning.
Up to three dwellings are permitted by right, but resource consent is required for four or more dwellings in that zone.
Auckland Council planners granted the consent application on a non-notified basis in February.
Currently there is one home on the site at 35 Centreway Road and neighbour Tony Rae, 77, says he found out about the plan by accident last month, when talking to the tenant.
The 77-year-old says it makes him “cranky” that no neighbours were consulted – something that is generally not required under Auckland Unitary Plan rules.
He alerted other neighbours and a group of around eight are anxious about the potential affects of the three-storey development on their properties including loss of sunlight and privacy, damage from earthworks and construction and eventually noise from nine households that will live just over the fence.
“We always knew with a piece of land that size that something would go up there, but we thought we would have a say,” Tony says.
Other neighbours say if they had been consulted, they would have asked for a high fence to provide privacy, a decent distance between the building and the property’s boundary and a chance to ensure they are not overlooked or lose sunlight. One resident, Aine Cooper, says the development may have windows that look directly into her bedroom and kitchen.
The developer is Milieu Property. The company was registered in 2018 and is now listed as GWG Project Services (formerly Milieu Property). The sole director is Xinran Wang.
Following Hibiscus Matters’ intervention, company director Angela Wang met with neighbours to discuss their concerns. Tony says the meeting, which was also with the construction company, was helpful and may have resolved some issues.
The reasons given by Council for requiring resource consent for more than three properties within this zone include: “to manage the effects of development on adjoining neighbouring sites, including visual amenity, privacy and access to daylight and sunlight”.
