Plans for Winton Land's five-block Northbrook Avon Loop, Oxford Tce, Christchurch. Photo / Supplied by Winton Land
Plans for Winton Land's five-block Northbrook Avon Loop, Oxford Tce, Christchurch. Photo / Supplied by Winton Land
A listed retirement company got a double boost today, announcing an ex-finance minister appointed to its board and resource consent for a new Christchurch village.
Winton Land said former National cabinet minister Steven Joyce was becoming a director.
“Winton is pleased to further announce the appointment of Steven Joyce asa director, effective from today,” the company said.
Joyce, appointed as an independent director, will chair the audit and financial risk committee later next month.
Chris Meehan, Winton chairman, said Joyce brought valuable experience.
“With his vast financial and economic skills and experience, together with pragmatic and strategic insight, Winton is delighted to have Steven join the board.”
Joyce is a director of Joyce Advisory which advises boards, including on finance and economics and strategy execution, Winton noted.
He was a senior economic minister in the Key/English National-led Government, holding Finance, Economic Development, Science and Innovation, Transport, ICT and Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment portfolios.
Steven Joyce is becoming a Winton Land director. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
RNZ reported this month how cash-strapped Waikato University has paid nearly $1m to Joyce Advisory.
RNZ obtained records detailing dozens of invoices from that business to Waikato University between December 2019 and December 2022, totalling $966,000.
Tertiary Education Union organiser at Waikato University Shane Vugler said the union was “shocked and appalled” by the amount of money the university had spent on Joyce Advisory.
Waikato University refused an interview but, in a statement, vice-chancellor Neil Quigley said Joyce was contracted in 2019, initially to lead a “new brand campaign and strategy for student recruitment”. Quigley said Joyce’s work had shifted in focus from “programme and course advice for individuals to selling the wider university story” to key audiences.
“Steven’s involvement in this work has led to the university increasing its market share of school leavers over the past two years, despite a decrease in both the Year 13 cohort size and the proportion of students achieving University Entrance.”
Joyce is a former tertiary education minister who sometimes writes about the sector in his opinion articles for the New Zealand Herald.
In its second announcement today, Winton said it had won resource consent to develop a big Christchurch retirement village.
Northbrook Avon Loop will have 219 units of which 51 will be serviced and care units.
The 14,735 sqm site on Oxford Tce is opposite the Avon River and across from Hagley Park.
Christchurch City Council’s consent allows Winton to build five multi-storey buildings.
Julian Cook, Northbrook’s director said, “Receiving resource consent for Northbrook Avon Loop secures our luxury later offering in the Canterbury region for those that want a sophisticated five-star lifestyle in their later years.”
Meehan also announced big plans for Auckland’s waterfront this month in what is to be the city’s first high-rise inner-CBD retirement village.
It is a $750 million scheme to redevelop part of Wynyard Quarter’s waterfront edge, refurbishing and rebuilding a 1.7ha site.
Units for sale include 604sq m penthouses with four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms for $13.75m.
Chris Meehan with Winton's $750m Wynyard Quarter plans; pier21 Drystack is to the far right. Photo / Dean Purcell
A 12-level 154-unit retirement village, 200-seat wedding venue, new 250-seat waterfront dining/bar building, outdoor pool in a resort-like zone for village residents, new marina piers, dredging the seabed to make it deeper, a new marina and refurbishing many other surrounding buildings are part of the plan for the site.
Winton this month opened a $4m purpose-built show suite, 136 Beaumont St. Cape Interiors + Construction built a new standalone apartment to show buyers what’s being offered.
The retirement village site is freehold while Winton’s waterfront side of Beaumont St is leasehold in perpetuity to Viaduct Harbour Holdings, lease payments reviewed every seven years, with another four to run in its current term, Meehan said.
The retirement village is to be built by Icon.
The vertical village will rise on the site of a now-ditched scheme by one of China’s wealthiest women who planned a 435-unit $400m apartment / retail complex. In 2018, Fu Wah group, chaired by Chan Laiwa, said it would build there. It didn’t. Mansons bought the block and sold part to Winton for its new village.
Winton shares are trading around $1.85, down 32 per cent annually.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, having won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
