My Account
Journalist Bob Dey says many a good story can be found hidden within facts and figures as property is bought and sold. Bob has specialised in the area of property and business reporting since 1983 and now writes for National Business Review as well as running the Bob Dey Property Report website. As a resident of Stanmore Bay, Bob keeps a keen eye on Rodney. He says weathering the recession is just one of many challenges ahead for this region. Bob spoke to Terry Moore about his abiding interest in property and the commercial world.
I started in business journalism when I was writing for the Auckland Star in 1983. I asked the business journalists if anyone was writing about the large towers that were appearing on Queen Street at the time. Those glass towers were put up in a busy period for commercial real estate and I wrote about that property boom, followed by the property and sharemarket collapse. It was a pretty exciting time to be a business journalist. The rise in commercial activity in the 1990s was quite rational at first, but veered toward excess and resulted in the current recession. Over the last seven years or so I have written a lot about subdivisions and resource consents, litigation and property as investment, rather than residential, detailing the value of transactions which a lot of journalists don’t do. There is always a story to be told within those facts and figures if people follow them closely enough with sufficient understanding. They are stories that affect people close to home – the environment, suburbs, shops and main streets.
That background knowledge tells me we are headed for a depression, as I don’t think the financial sector is capable of solving the problems that caused the recession without a depression first. It started in America, where government was relying on regulation rather than letting the market rise and fall, but of course the rest of the world and local economies get caught up. We are seeing the results here in things such as interest rate shifts and the sudden cutting off of a supply of money which had been fairly freely available to property developers from banks looking for a good margin. Everyone is vulnerable in a recession and Rodney is no exception as shown by things such as the collapse of Kensington Park. Most property development in this country has been about making a quick buck, and in fact even if you go back decades it was probably still the same, but in Kensington Park’s case the problems seemed to come from bad management as much as anything; the international financial disaster just tipped the scales. Other property developers on the coast are also vulnerable, with mortgagee sales likely to become more common. Many of those companies are selling property that, for most buyers, is optional because it is at the luxury end of the scale. The recession could go on for years, depending on how it is handled, and it is hard for us in New Zealand to come out more quickly than the rest of the world, because we rely on international trade.
Rodney District Council tried to build a business base locally, and that has attracted a lot of opposition from the guardians of the metropolitan urban limit. I think business in the region could best operate by creating satellite areas such as Silverdale and the Hibiscus Coast, Warkworth and Wellsford. Businesses should be concentrated there, with links between them – physical and communication links. This would mean a big spend on public transport. Albany is a good example to learn from as the development of Silverdale North continues. Albany has developed in a chaotic, stupid way. It changed so quickly from rural into industrial and commercial without many sensible ways being provided to get around it. If Silverdale North’s commercial and industrial development isn’t thought out properly it could turn out the same.
My interest in property development is not just about the financial aspect, but how the urban landscape is shaped and urban design. Unfortunately I don’t think New Zealand has ever really had a period of fine architecture, but I would like to see one in future. I remember talking to developers in the 1970s about building things better, making buildings more energy efficient and such as building houses that face the sun. In the 1970s houses were generally built facing the street and we have been slow to change. Some of the early building in Gulf Harbour is a good example of houses built very sensibly to face the sun, but many of the developments out there are not well designed. There need to be rules in place to make people design things better because New Zealanders seem incapable of creating something nice without being forced. The Queen’s Chain, which still lies right around the coast and guarantees public access, while it has been good in many ways, has also been the cause of bad development. There are times when it wouldn’t hurt for the public not to have access to every little piece of coastline, but as a Hibiscus Coast resident, I would be ‘very NIMBY’ (not in my backyard) about that!
I leave home in Stanmore Bay every day to commute into Auckland and every day I think I should stay on the coast instead – there is certainly plenty to write about locally. I moved to the Hibiscus Coast at the end of 1987 after a period living in London. After London it was nice to live near the sea, to smell it and have a morning swim whenever I want. I used to play squash in Red Beach and was president of Red Beach Surf Club for seven years but I don’t have time for much in the way of leisure activities now. When I started my Property Report website I thought I could control what I did, but I have let it control me. I spend a lot of time above and beyond normal journalists’ hours on it – it’s a bit of a rod I’ve made for my own back. And, strangely, being a journalist hasn’t made me a millionaire yet, so retirement looks theoretical at the moment.
One of the things I am following with interest is how parts of Rodney will fare with the restructuring of Auckland governance. Both the Royal Commission and Government fixes for Auckland are likely to damage Rodney District. The commission would have created a powerless rural city of the north containing Wellsford, Warkworth and Helensville, when it might have done better by tying Helensville to the west of Auckland in an expanded Waitakere and pitching Wellsford and Warkworth in with the eastern patch of Kaipara District. If changes like those were to happen, the efforts of Rodney District Council to improve its economic development wouldn’t be wasted. Under the Government proposal, Auckland city will continue to trespass in paddocks where it’s not wanted in both the north and south. If Rodney is broken into three local board areas you will have the west, the north and the Hibiscus Coast; the southern area will be forgotten and none of them will carry any weight. The commission proposed a city comprising North Shore and the Hibiscus Coast, but Okura between them would be thrown in with the rural council. The East Coast Bays end of the Shore and the old areas down to Devonport don’t see eye to eye – their priorities are very different, and including the Hibiscus Coast would create a third partisan zone, with none of the three areas’ representatives likely to take a broad view. In the Auckland Council, the city-thinkers (elected and bureaucracy) in downtown Auckland will dominate and control a huge asset base.
