The large block of land bordered by College Rd/Donnelly St/Ngahue Dr/ Norman Lesser Drive was sold last year by Auckland Council’s development arm Panuku. A resource consent application to develop and subdivide the land and build 81 units has been submitted to Council, with the working name of “St Johns Park Heights”. The application outlines a proposal for 81 detached two and three story units with four driveway points and 17 new vehicle crossings. Orakei Local Board’s (OLB) Portfolio Lead for Planning and Consents Troy Churton kindly alerted us to the consent application and strongly believes that it should be publicly notified, as do we. The developer’s submission states that the effect of this development is “less than minor”, a statement which Troy Churton and the Residents Association disagree. You can view the submission documents here – due to the size and number of documents this link will take you to a Onedrive link.
At the Residents Association we are not anti-development and understand the commercial realities of making a development like this work and the importance of provide housing units during a housing shortage, but we believe that a development of this scale needs to be well considered and robustly debated and critiqued. There is a real danger that in 20 years time we are going to look back on the bulk, cheap and sometimes poor quality housing we rushed to build and shake our heads in disbelief that we let it happen.
Impression of the private accessway supplied by developer.
Our Impressions
We had our local experts have a brief look at the plans and this is what they thought:
- Overall bulk considerations – with the slope of the site and the intensity and height of the proposed development it will appear quite dominant on the corner of Ngahue Dr and Norman Lesser Dr. It doesn’t feel like much has been done to mitigate this on that corner. It feels like there is a ‘solid’ block of similar height buildings along the full length of both sites without much ‘relief’ in the way of lower buildings or even green space in between. Perhaps four stories should be allowable in some specific locations, allowing more variation across the sites in terms of massing and heights.
- Design at micro scale – a lot of time has been spent attempting to use a variety of cladding materials on each unit (sometimes up to four per unit). This is the attempt at ‘variety’ in the design but it needs to be done at the macro/site scale first as mentioned above. Furthermore, using all those cladding systems will be a nightmare to detail and construct particularly at all the junctions, Potentially cost cuts will occur and a few of those materials may be removed.
- Grey roofs all shaped and pitched the same. Visually not very appealing.
- It is unclear whether the developer has achieved the required percentage of outdoor area for each unit.
- Impervious area – there is obviously a huge increase in the impervious area due to the development. We assume calculations have been done and provided regarding the capacity of the existing stormwater drainage in the area but it would be worth checking.
- Sewer drains – same comment as above – assume drain capacity calculations have been done and provided in light of all the extra bathrooms in the development.
- With Donnelly St the only entry/exit to the development, turning right out of Donnelly Street onto Ngahue Drive would not be easy, especially the proximity to the traffic lights and as it is a four lane busy road.
- The applicant has identified the stream as a ‘constraint’ and have just filled it in and built straight over it. It looks like they have done quite a bit of work considering how it will be diverted. In terms of building over the stream and diverting it, it is not uncommon and is done on much larger scales on other sites, so you would need to rely on the geotec and civil reports, but it may be a missed opportunity to provide green space and variation on the site.
Impression of entrance to the development from Donnelly St.
Orakei Local Board’s Perspective
Here is a summary of Troy Churton’s comments on behalf of the OLB to the planners at Auckland Council.
“Despite the pre-lodgment meetings and resulting rhetoric that effects are “less than minor”, I strongly disagree that the actual or potential effects will be ‘less than minor’ given this irregular shaped land and it’s particular sandwiched location.
Overall my strong view is this development should be publicly notified using Councils’ general discretion under the RMA, or to use special circumstances provisions to do so.
Ingress and egress for the new 81 detached, two and three storied, residential unit development is proposed to be absorbed through installing four driveway points (see page 16 of the Assessment of Environmental Effects or AEE) for a bulk of the development along with 17 new vehicle crossings (as described page 17 AEE and Appendix 8) along the already narrow ‘Donnelly Street’, a laneway type of street that I observe to be often parked out from the existing level of residential development along it.
I do not agree with the optimism of the planner or the Traffic Assessment report regarding general maneuverability, ease of access for rubbish collections and other larger trucks etc given the intensity and design. The adverse effects will be more than minor. I think it is predicable also that many private residents will not use the double garaging or garaging in their units all the time or at all, a trait seen in many other intensive development sites where movement areas have been designed to facilitate tightly squeezed building intensity. Planners often refer to this effect as something that can be “absorbed buy the surrounding road network”. In my view there is no surrounding absorbing capability for this location and the effects can not be mitigated without significant design changes.
The potential effects for traffic congestion, parking conflict, pedestrian safety risk and safety at Ngahue Drive are all, in my view, far more than minor.
Considerable visual and lighting effects will impact in ways more than minor on existing residents of Donnelly Street to the south and slightly lower down, for example, given the three storied wall of development proposed as follows:
The inconsistent evolution of advice as to the status of a stream through the site (para 3.1.2 AEE) is concerning, and the proposal to fill the gully of the site to enable more development in that context must be considered in conjunction with the bulk earthworks proposed AND the proposal to divert overland flow path. I note also that the owner of 29 Donnelly Street is directly effected by the potential to require its property for doing stormwater extension work. The potential effects on that owner justify limited notification in any event.
There are several infringements of height and height in relation to boundary that concern. For example, more than 50% of roof area of the development for units 60-62, 75 , 76, 78-80 will exceed height standards by more than 1m. These are, cumulatively, more than minor and therefore a significant infringement that can be mitigated by less intensive design.
Other standards areas also push the envelope as to what is expected from the more generous Unitary Plan. Impervious area infringes by around 5%, landscaped area requirements are breached by around 5%, outlook spaces are breached – all these matters raise concern. However it is more concerning that the applicant suggests that its inability to meet the standards for a National Environmental Standard (NES), in this case relating to contamination and preventing adverse effects on human health and the environment, are not mentioned as a minor matter or not. The site is known for traces of heavy metal above the background levels anticipated (see para 5.3.11).
The reality, in my view, is this sort of inability to fulfill the expectations of a NES means the proposal likely generates effects that are more than minor – and along with other matters identified above, justifies notification. I disagree with the conclusion offered by the planner and team of applicant reporters that the adverse effects will be no more than minor.”
What Happens Next?
We will continue to track the application’s progress and thank Orakei Local Board’s Portfolio Lead for Planning and and Consents Troy Churton for keeping us informed. The processing power now lies with the planners and we note that it is pretty rare to get residential resource consent applications to be publicly notified, but we will keep trying and at least get some scrutiny to the process.
Will will provide updates where available in our monthly newsletter and on our Facebook and Instagram pages. If you have any comments on this development or are able to provide any expertise please contact us. In the past we have had developers of almost all proposed developments speak at a monthly meeting, and we hope that we can arrange that in this instance too.
