My Account
Another non-notified resource consent has allowed a set of six-storey tower blocks on the water’s edge to gain Auckland Council approval under the radar.
The buildings are to be built at 102-130 Pinecrest Drive, Gulf Harbour, by the roundabout overlooking Hobbs Bay.
The allowable height limit in this area is 18m – the development exceeds this by 7m. It also infringes the Coastal Protection Yard provision, as there is no space between the buildings and the coastal edge. There will be no pedestrian access around the front of the building, along the water’s edge. This is not required, Council advises, following an Esplanade Waiver Agreement entered into in 2008 between the former Rodney District Council and then owner of the land, Gulf Corporation.
The construction plan, which encompasses 76 two and three-bedroom apartments and 95 covered carparks, was approved by Council in 2017.
The company behind the project is Fairway Bay developer, Top Harbour.
A Top Harbour spokesperson says that it is likely to be around two years until the complex is actually built.
The brief to architects Woodhams Meikle Zhan asked for the buildings’ bulk to be minimised when viewed from residential areas behind the complex.
The consent decision, signed by duty commissioner Mark Farnsworth, states that, “the proposed design is appropriate and responds to the characteristics of the site and surrounding environment”.
It further states that erosion and sediment control measures are in place to ensure that earthworks can be undertaken without adverse affects on the wider environment, including the Coastal Marine Area, and that “…the habitable rooms of the apartment building are resilient to coastal inundation hazards”.
Hibiscus Matters asked Council planners why the allowable height limit was exceeded by 7m, why such structures could be built on the water’s edge considering the Council’s much promoted Climate Emergency Declaration, and how the community can be guaranteed that sediment controls will work.
In response, resource consents north west manager, Ian Dobson, says the decision was made prior to the Climate Emergency Declaration, and in accordance with the provisions of planning documents.
He says the conditions of consent, including specific conditions on sediment control, will be monitored “in the same manner as other consents”.
Regarding the height, documents supplied by Council suggest that the location, “at the bottom of a bowl”, and design elements reduce some of the mass and bulk of the buildings.
