Earthworks at Drury where Kiwi Property plans the new town centre.
“We’ve got a modest site office,” quips Drury development director David Schwartfeger, pulling off Fitzgerald Rd onto a shingled building site with two locked Portacoms.
Not far behind the twin relocatables, a fleet of Ross Reid Contractors’ colourful earthmoving machines stand idle, waiting for the rain to stop.
If only.
We’re at Drury East in South Auckland, not far from Pukekohe. Then it’s boots on for a trudge over part of 53.5ha, the star in the crown for New Zealand’s largest listed developer, Kiwi Property Group. This is where hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent to create a new urban hub to help accommodate Auckland’s growth.
The sound of the Hingaia Stream’s waterfall is drowned out by the roar of the nearby Southern Motorway. Transpower pylons tower above.
“Watch yourself,” says Kiwi chief executive Clive Mackenzie, warning of the electric fence surrounding paddocks.
Once we’re at the tallest hill, we’re standing in front of the Flanagan homestead from the late 1800s, with its steeply pitched roof and fast-diminishing stock of trees.
Schwartfeger explains that Kiwi is selling “hundreds” of those to a tree contractor, “and they’ve gone as far as Te Arai in the north to the Wellington Botanic Gardens in the south”.
From here, we can look back at Kiwi’s site, the biggest punt so far by the $3.2 billion landlord, the owner of our biggest shopping centre, Sylvia Park, where it is developing $200m of build-to-rent apartments.
At Drury, we look down to where humps are being smoothed out, gullies filled and stormwater retention areas have been created. The earthmovers will work for the next two seasons to smooth the land, creating more level building platforms for all that’s planned.
As we trudge through nodding thistles and mud so deep it threatens to engulf our boots, the history of this area speaks almost as loudly as Mackenzie and Schwartfeger’s explanation of their plans.
The Victorian homestead at the site’s tallest point is our goal and a reminder of the area’s history — and of war.
“It is said to incorporate fabric from a much earlier house used by General Duncan Alexander Cameron, commander of the British Army in New Zealand from 1861-1865, as his headquarters during the New Zealand Wars,” says Matthews & Matthews Architects’ 2019 historical heritage assessment written for Kiwi Property.
Tauranga’s Cameron Rd was named after the now-controversial commander.
Drawings of Kiwi’s planned town centre feature the non-scheduled Flanagan homestead, an important part of the area’s fabric with its distinctive architectural features including the return verandah.
“Dating from around the early 1880s when Robert and Joseph Flanagan obtained shared ownership for three sections fronting what is today the eastern side of Flanagan Road ... the farmhouse is the earliest evident in Flanagan Rd,” said the heritage architects’ report.
Will it stay where it is, set among all these exotic trees? Silly question: the hill gets cut down by 12m, so no. It’ll move, relocated not far from where it stands today, Mackenzie explains, adding that reorientation of the house will enhance light and sun within.
Ngāti Tamaoho, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngaati Whanaunga and Ngāti Te Ata were some of the iwi who provided input into Kiwi’s plans.
It’s hard to imagine, but we’re on the site of the first stage of what is planned to be a new Auckland metropolitan hub the size of Napier. About 60,000 people could eventually live in the Drury-Ōpaheke area once Kiwi, Fulton Hogan and Oyster Capital do their work.
Mackenzie has previously said “hundreds of millions” will be spent by Kiwi alone.
You need some imagination to think like Schwartfeger and Mackenzie, and to believe that something this big will happen, and will be needed. Kiwi is working alongside Fulton Hogan and Oyster Capital to fulfil a 20- to 25-year vision of upscaling Drury from what looks like a small rural town to something more akin to Albany or Westgate — a master-planned city within a city, but with a strong environmental focus.
Graeme Causer, Fulton Hogan’s chief executive for land, raised concerns in June about Auckland Council’s plan to squeeze development into existing sites rather than greenfields locations. Mackenzie says the three businesses already have their Drury plans through, so were ahead of the game.
This first stage by Kiwi is on land straddling the Southern Motorway to our west, sheltered by the Bombay Hills and with trains passing to the north. It’s what Kiwi calls Drury East.
Once urban zonings are in place, Kiwi will sell its land to group house builders, with plans for 7000 homes accommodating about 19,000 people.
Kiwi then plans 5.8ha of office floorspace, 11ha of shops, up to 6000 jobs, a railway station, bus interchange, provision for a regional hospital precinct, two primary schools and one secondary school, and 10ha of open space with a cycleway. Mackenzie defers to the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health when it comes to the hospital and schools, but says a new regional hospital will be needed in the area in the next few years.
He’s hoping it will be on Kiwi’s land.
Even before it got consent for the complete scheme, Kiwi began consented earthworks last October, halting as planned during this year’s extremely wet conditions. Schwartfeger hopes works might resume next month, and that we get a sufficiently dry summer to move the heavy clay topsoil.
Last month, an independent panel of the Environmental Protection Authority granted East Drury’s fast-track resource consent application — a scheme the Government introduced to get through what was expected to be a Covid construction slowdown.
“The decision paves the way for the company to create a thriving new town centre for the area,” Kiwi said on July 18. “Kiwi Property’s development is expected to deliver thousands of much-needed homes, generate thousands of jobs, and enable the construction of a 24,000sq m commercial retail centre.”
Kiwi might even pay $50 million for a new motorway offramp from Drury directly into its site. “It would give direct access to our site. It would be a great enhancement of our site,” says Mackenzie. “It’s optional for us to build it. If we do choose to build it, it will add to the whole site in terms of ease of access. We’re talking to Waka Kotahi about it.”
About 10,000 cars a day now use the Drury offramp.
Around $2.6b is committed in Government support, including the Papakura-to-Pukekohe rail electrification now under construction, a new Drury train station and a SH1 upgrade also under construction, adding lanes to the motorway.
Kiwi will pay for all the internal roads, lighting, footpaths and stormwater catchment, and getting water, fibre and electricity to the site.
Preparing to return to town, Schwartfeger advises crossing a clay trench to long, wet grass. That will enable us to remove the worst of the clay from our boots, he reckons.
He’s proved right.
Investors will be hoping Kiwi is also right with its audacious plans for Drury East.
DRURY EAST - WHAT IS IT?
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
Fletcher Building, Spark and Ryman are potentially all on the radar.