The new Summerset St Johns retirement village in Auckland. Photo / Supplied
The new Summerset St Johns retirement village in Auckland. Photo / Supplied
A new retirement hub where more than 400 people will live; concern expressed about a heritage building deteriorating; a quarter of external cladding inspections in new Auckland homes failed lately, so should the Government relax consent and inspection regimes? All in today’s Property Insider.
Residents this month begin moving intoNew Zealand’s largest new retirement village.
The $350 million nine-level, 340-unit Summerset St Johns in Auckland’s eastern suburbs is owned by Summerset Group, developed on Anglican Church-owned leasehold land.
Just over half the 340 units have been released for sale in the first stage, of which a third have been sold or are under contract.
Summerset St Johns is a new retirement village in Auckland's eastern suburbs. Photo / Summerset Group
So it’s a tough old market, even out in the wealthy, rapidly ageing leafy east of the city.
The official village opening is planned for next month.
The Herald visited the village in April when construction general manager Dean Tallentire showed how the main buildings were up and about to be fitted out.
Back in April: $6m penthouse at top at the right of the central building under construction at Summerset St Johns. Photo / Dean Purcell
The village is at 180-188 St Johns Rd and has 255 independent apartments, 55 serviced apartments, 30 premium care suites, and 19 memory apartments for dementia residents.
A further 11 townhouses are planned on the neighbouring site at 51 Rippon Cres, but no work has started there yet.
Summerset has leased that block of land on a 127-year terminating lease. The village is 36,500sq m and has 280 basement-level car parks. Minimum entry age is 70 and about 400 people are expected to live within the buildings.
A licence to occupy a penthouse is $6m. Licences on two-bedroom apartments with a single bathroom and one car park are being advertised from $1,350,000. Licences for serviced one-bedroom apartments with no car park and a single bathroom are advertised from $710,000.
Progress earlier this year at Summerset St Johns, the new retirement village in Auckland. Photo / Summerset Group
Te reo Māori in architecture
Architecture practice Peddlethorp is further embedding te reo Māori into its work.
Director Richard Goldie, associate director Derek Kawiti and senior associate Richard Atkins were involved in the project Room To Rūma.
Goldie sent examples of words used. An accessible toilet is wharepaku tomopai. An attic is taiwhanga tuanui. A balcony is mahaurangi. A basement is papararo. A car park is tūnga waka while car port is taumaru waka.
Devonport Heritage wants to contact the owner of the historic Esplanade Hotel about what it sees as maintenance issues that it says need attending to.
“We have written twice to the owner and his Auckland associates calling on them to carry out much-needed maintenance, but have not received a reply,” the group said last month.
Repairs needed: A local lobby group showed how the Esplanade Hotel in Devonport is falling into a sorry state. Photo / Devonport Heritage
“We get inquiries from people increasingly worried about the dilapidated state of the landmark waterfront hotel. This superb 1903 Edwardian hotel has the highest level of protection from both Auckland Council and Heritage New Zealand, so our next step is to write to both organisations about the danger of the hotel falling into disrepair,” it said.
New Zealand-registered company Sun Aohua NZ bought the hotel in 2015, with a stated intention to upgrade the building, the heritage organisation said.
Companies Office records show majority and 25% shareholder is Jai Li, of Auckland, who is also a director along with Chang Wei Li, of Castor Bay.
Margot McRae of the group said attempts to contact the owners via their lawyers had been unsuccessful.
“Front of mind at present is the situation with the Chateau Tongariro, which has the same historic protection as the Esplanade, but now faces permanent closure after its offshore owner failed to keep up with maintenance,” the group said.
Last year, a company controlled by Stanley Point’s Berridge Spencer bought properties neighbouring the Esplanade.
Spencer is heir to the paper-manufacturing Caxton fortune. He owns 50.1% of Peninsula Capital, which bought 10 properties fronting the village main street, as well as other properties.
Interests associated with two ex-ANZ bosses — Mark Hiddleston and Graham Turley — own the other half of the company that bought real estate valued by the Auckland Council at $40m-plus.
A quarter of Auckland cladding inspections fail
Jeff Farhensohn, Auckland Council building inspection manager, has reported inspection failures in new home claddings in the area.
He wrote on LinkedIn yesterday: “3722 cladding inspections failed in last 12 months in Auckland — roughly 25% of them.”
He accompanied comments with a video of a new home inspection showing many faults.
“This is a simple, single-storey house and the builder’s been a licensed building practitioner since 2014 and registered builder for a well-known national building association since 2020. Like I’ve said in the past, we come across these every week. I’m not sure if they physically did the work or supervised it; regardless, this qualified builder’s cladding is coming off. LBP complaints take some time to investigate and compile. We’ve had to employ someone fulltime to do these.”
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk wants to reform the consents process.
Ex-Master Builders chief executive David Kelly recommended consent regime changes, saying more responsibility could be passed on to licensed building practitioners for low-risk residential construction work.
Penk on Sunday released Kelly’s report, following the Government’s moves to ease other parts of the building system.
Kelly’s report for Hastings District Council recommends a six-point series of changes that would mean councils taking less of a role in consenting.
That way, he says, the system can be streamlined and simplified and no building consent requirements would be needed for low-risk new homes.
Penk referred to the building system suffering from “inefficiency, duplication, and over-conservativism. Not only am I aware of these issues, hearing on a near constant basis from the sector that the consent system is holding back growth and innovation, but the Government is already progressing work on these recommendations”.
Not everyone is a fan of the proposed changes.
Fahrensohn made that clear in his post.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
