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Private development business Ockham Residential headed by Mark Todd will today open its 15th Auckland apartment building, completing 762 units in the city since it was founded 14 years ago in 2009.
Apartments in the 14-unit Koa Flats in Meadowbank sold from just over $500,000 to $900,000 each and thatbuilding is being opened today.
Koa is the first of five developments the business plans to finish this year including Aroha, Alto, Manaaki and The Greenhouse.
During 2023, 481 new units are due to be completed and opened, a spokesman said, in an attempt to redress the city’s housing shortage.
In around a month, the business plans to open Avondale’s new, much larger Aroha as its 16th block with 117 units, taking new unit numbers to 879.
The new block is at 4 Koa St. Photo / Patrick Reynolds
Koa Flats’ units were reported in 2021 to be for sale from $650,000 to $925,000.
The block is three levels high and is Ockham’s first development in the eastern suburbs. It is also one of the smallest blocks the company has developed.
Deputy mayor Desley Simpson is today due to open the flats, which are 400m from the Meadowbank train station.
“It’s the smallest development we’ve undertaken,” Todd said.
“It was the very first project consented under the new mixed housing urban zone that’s a key element of the new Auckland Unitary Plan. The zone permits three-storey developments without density controls in areas with excellent public transport amenities.”
The plan envisages 70 per cent of Auckland’s new housing during the next 30 years will be built within the existing urban boundaries.
“People sometimes forget how massive Auckland City is. Geographically it’s already the size of London. A city with no limits – endlessly sprawling and devouring thousands of hectares of farmland and bush each year is so last century, a Los Angeles-style dystopia. It’s neither sustainable nor affordable nor desirable. More motorways are just roads to nowhere,” Todd said.
Koa Flats illustrated the benefits that intelligent densification could bring, he said.
“This is a 632sq m site in an incredible location. It would usually have two or three terrace houses stuck on it that would cost $2m to $3m each,” he said. The block has apartments but Todd said it was very close to the train station.
Todd co-founded the business with Benjamin Preston and they were joined by architect Tania Wong.
Fifteen completed developments later, these three original “Ockhammers” remain at the core of the company, working with 90 others as well as contractors.
The business, which sponsors New Zealand’s major annual book awards, is also developing former Unitec land in a multibillion-dollar scheme.
Marutūāhu chairman Paul Majurey said that entity was working with Ockham on the newly-created, newly-named suburb Maungārongo, beside Unitec and the old Carrington Hospital.
The Marutūāhu-Ockham Partnership plans work in the next 20 years within the larger Te Auaunga Precinct: nearly 40ha around the ex-hospital and neighbouring university being developed by three rōpū - Marutūāhu, Waiohua-Tāmaki and Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei.
Majurey said the almost 11ha share of Marutūāhu land would bring new mixed-use buildings to the established Ōwairaka Mt Albert community.
“It’s a staged development, a 10- to 15-year project which in time will have over 3000 homes across 40 buildings. It’s a village within a city, an urban kāinga,” said Majurey, also chairman of Eke Panuku Development Auckland.
Koa Flats was not one of the blocks developed with Marutūāhu, though.
By the time Ockham finishes its 16th development - Aroha at Avondale - it will have built 879 units.
