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A new childcare centre, Millie’s House, will open in January 2019 at 63-65 Hill Street in Warkworth after being granted resource consent in August.
The centre will cater for up to 70 children and 10 staff. It will open from 7am to 6pm weekdays.
Developer Robert Shannon says the consent process took longer than anticipated, but he is happy with the result.
“There are no conditions in the consent that concern us so we will proceed with construction mid next year,” Mr Shannon says.
The resource consent faced some opposition. Jon Waters, who lives next to the development, had a number of concerns including traffic management and sewerage.
Prior to the hearing, he collected 156 signatures in a petition against the development.
“At the hearing, it felt like the experts were paid to get this consent through and we were ignored,” Mr Waters says.
His primary concern was about vehicles leaving the centre carpark and the visibility they would have of traffic coming over the hill crest next to View Road.
Auckland Transport has acknowledged this issue and is planning to erect a traffic island and ‘slow pads’ on the Falls Road side of the hill.
“I’m happy that any potential issues will be solved by requirements in the resource consent,” Mr Shannon says.
Mr Waters says the sewerage pipe from the Hill Street property runs through his property and will need to be widened to meet commercial standards.
However, Mr Shannon says there are alternatives to running the pipe through Mr Waters property.
The existing house will be extended and 19 car parking spaces will be provided.
“We chose Warkworth for the centre because of the forecasted growth, but we predict it will take a while for it to reach full capacity once open.”
According to the Millie’s House website, Mr Shannon first became involved with childcare centres as an investor in 1992 before developing three in New Zealand. He sold those in 2004 and moved to the UK, where he ran 15 childcare centres.
