The land at 100 Morrin Rd in Auckland where Fletcher plans more than 200 new homes. Photo / Google Maps
The land at 100 Morrin Rd in Auckland where Fletcher plans more than 200 new homes. Photo / Google Maps
Housing giant Fletcher Residential has consent to buy Auckland Council and Housing NZ land for 300-plus new homes worth more than $200 million.
The company has just been granted Overseas Investment Office consent for the land buy-up but had to go to the Overseas Investment Office for permission, due toits foreign control: 55.5 per cent Australian, 21 per cent New Zealand, 12.3 per cent United States and 5.4 per cent British-owned.
It can buy the 4.2ha greenfields, undeveloped site at 20 Stonefields Ave and 100 Morrin Rd, Saint Johns, but the price paid was suppressed in the Auckland Council sale. That land has not been used for housing previously and is an open, green ex-quarry site.
“The applicant will develop the land for new housing and build 264 new residential dwellings on the new residential title that is to be created as 18 stand-alone houses, 20 duplex houses, 48 terraced houses, 22 one-over-one units, 96 apartment units, six retirement living duplex houses and 54 retirement living apartment units,” the consent said.
Of those 264, 204 places will be sold on the open market and 60 will be kept by Fletcher and operated as a retirement village, the consent said in reference to Fletcher’s new Vivid Living village plans.
The greenfields site (centre) where Fletcher Residential plans more than 200 new homes. Photo / Google
The Ōrākei Local Board last year cited 84-100 Morrin Rd as a site for residential development and mentioned that council’s property arm, Eke Panuku, was to further consider proposals on the sale, according to meeting minutes from last March.
Eke Paunuku’s board meeting of June 22 last year noted that 84-100 Morrin Rd “has been grassed and vacant since earthworks to the southwest were completed in 2011. The site is zoned residential – terrace housing and apartment buildings in a prime residential location and considered suitable for residential development.”
Eke Panuku says various properties are either available for lease, purchase or offer development opportunities. It sold 10 Felton Matthew Ave in Saint Johns and 108 Hepburn St in Freemans Bay in central Auckland but many other properties for sale.
In a second decision also just issued by the OIO, Fletcher can also buy 0.6ha in Onehunga from Housing New Zealand Build: one site at 9-13 Namata Rd and 2 Roosevelt Ave off Mt Smart Rd and another site at 1 Nissan Place a few streets away.
The Crown business has agreed to sell those two sites for $7.6m.
The land has been home to many traditional state houses for decades but the street frontages and locations mean Fletcher can build more intensively in that Te Papapa area.
Housing NZ Build is wholly owned by the state housing agency Kāinga Ora Homes and Communities, Companies Office records show.
“The applicant will develop the land for new housing and build 62 new residential dwellings on the new residential titles that are to be created as 42 apartments, eight stand-alone houses, eight duplex houses, four terraced houses over three superlots Namta, Nissan and Rockfield. Of the above units at least 30, or 48 per cent, are to be delivered as affordable housing. 10 one-bedrooms and 20 two-bedroom Kiwibuild homes,” the OIO decision said.
Mark Fraser of Kāinga Ora is based at Hobsonville Point.
The land sale is to fund Kāinga Ora’s urban redevelopment to build more than 40,000 new warm, dry homes nationally in a 20-year plan.
Last June, the Herald reported how 230ha to 270ha of Auckland crown land is being sold to private or sharemarket-listed developers, to build free-market homes. From Northcote to Tāmaki, Oranga to Hobsonville Point, Mt Roskill to Māngere and throughout Northcote’s town centre, large blocks of state land are being sold bit-by-bit in a 15- to 20-year plan.
Kāinga Ora owns nearly 1400ha of land in suburban and central Auckland. Of that, large-scale holdings amount to 458ha and it’s 55-60 per cent of that which is being sold.
