By ANNE GIBSON
The Property Council has pulled the plug on $50,000 prize money for a design competition centred on the Britomart area of Auckland - protesting that commercial interests are not being taken into account.
The council had put up $50,000 for the contest and the Auckland City Council was matching the figure, to post a $100,000 prize.
But the property group now says it disagrees with the way the city council is structuring the competition and has withheld its funding.
The withdrawal comes on the eve of the city council's launch of the Waitemata Waterfront Development design competition, which is expected to be approved by the council tomorrow night.
Planning group manager John Duthie said the competition would be launched next week and run for about six weeks.
The spat over the prizemoney points to a clash between commercial and civic-sector interests, as the city council goes back to the drawing board on the Britomart transport terminal development.
When the Property Council first put the prize money forward, it was confident a competition could be run that allowed a combination of creative design and commercial reality.
However, a series of meetings between the city council and some members of the property group - including the sponsors of the prize money - revealed the city council had the option to incorporate a variety of designs from companies into the winning entry.
Property Council national director John Dakin said this did not suit some members, who were mainly developers, building companies and commercially focused companies.
A firm might spend $150,000 putting a proposal together, only to find that the final design or plans incorporated those from other companies.
The Property Council newsletter Hot Property News said this week: "The competition does not provide sufficient incentive for commercial organisations to commit resources and bring innovation to the process."
However, Dakin was confident that a good design would still emerge and said the present situation "isn't all bad news."
The Property Council wanted a two-step process, he said.
The first stage would be an "open slather, when the zaniest ideas come up and are discussed."
The second stage would involve the city council choosing five or six consortiums of commercial interests.
The single best design would then be chosen from that group "and the overall winner would get the design-build contract."
However, Dakin said meetings with Duthie had shown the city wanted to leave its options open.
The Property Council was still partly involved in the Britomart design competition, with the city requesting that it nominate a judge, he said.
In response, Duthie said Auckland City did not want to lock itself into a strict design-and-build approach for Britomart.
"We wanted to leave ourselves open to merge different ideas. We were not going to lock ourselves into any position at this time and the Property Council understands that," he said. "This way, we get designs and go out to tender and ask for submissions from various construction companies."
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