The quarry with Mt Eden Rd (right), looking towards the city. Photo / Greg Bowker
The quarry with Mt Eden Rd (right), looking towards the city. Photo / Greg Bowker
Will 1000 terrace and apartment units be built in Auckland's Three Kings quarry for $800 million or will it be 1500 units for $1.5b?
Steve Evans, chief executive of Fletcher Building's residential and development division, can't yet say. It all depends.
Standing at the edge of the 15.1ha pit minedfor more than a century, he says one thing's for sure: it is a huge opportunity in a city with a housing shortage and a chance to provide vital new sports and recreation facilities.
"It depends on how you progress around the site," he said of unit numbers at the pit whose base has been raised 10m to 15m in the last few years.
That took around 200,000 trucks of soil, much from the $1.2b Central Interceptor and $4 billion-plus City Rail Link, Evans said.
The floor has been raised to nearer Mt Eden Rd but is still many metres below it.
"When you go right back, people were going 'you're building in a hole'. Well, we say we're not building in a hole. Look at the size of it. This is magic!" Evans said.
The quarry is on the corner of Mt Eden Rd and Graeme Breed Dr, near the Mt Albert Rd intersection, beneath the remaining maunga Te Tātua o Riu-ki-uta/Big King and backing onto the Three Kings town centre or shops.
Steve Evans at the quarry site. Photo / Greg Bowker
A 30m Smith tower crane is on the 50-unit Caldera apartment site, due to be finished next March. The first 15 units on the Mt Eden Rd/Graeme Breed Dr corner pre-sold for around $800,000 to $1.2m, Evans said.
"Previously, we had a lot of roads," he said of earlier schemes but that changed as the plans evolved.
"This is the second-biggest housing site on the isthmus after Unitec," Evans said. "We're at the point where the finished floor level will be 10m below Mt Eden Rd. Previously it was up to 25m below the road."
A town square, two playing fields, village green and a wetland park with a boardwalk are promoted with the sale of Fletcher Living homes at the quarry.
Greg McKeown, a member of the South Epsom Planning Group, said "there is a heck of a lot to be delivered.
"We haven't had a lot of contact with them for a while but we having a meeting with them this month. There are undelivered parts that we want to comment on. There's only a very small amount delivered so far. We're keen to talk to Fletcher at their invitation. They've done well to invited us to a meeting.
Masterplan for ex-Three Kings quarry. Photo / supplied
"What we can see is that the development is proceeding in accord with the master plan we've agreed to. But what we're keen to do is have a meeting with Fletcher to see what they will deliver in terms of buildings and community facilities are in the quarry," he said.
Others in the area complained amount the amount of dust during the hot summer months, saying "piddly" sprinkler systems were sorely inadequate in the face of the sheer size of the quarry, the amount of earth being moved and months of dry conditions.
Some in the area doubt Fletcher will do anywhere near 1500, questioning its concept of "hanging" apartments from the sides of the quarry, who would maintain lifts for access from the top of the quarry into housing estates and the length of time work is taking.
"They seem to move soil to one area, then move it, then shift it again," a local said.
But Evans said that was part of the process with the soil being dried in layers and stockpiling was part of that process.
The quarry with Mt Eden Rd (right), looking towards the city. Photo / Greg Bowker
But Evans pointed to the two new sports fields now being built at the Three Kings town centre end of the quarry as physical evidence of the company's solid community commitment.
Those new all-seasons fields will be fully drained and professionally built, unlike the existing sports fields to the western side of the maunga "which are hard clay in the summer and a bog in winter".
The Puketapapa Local Board supports intensification, be it Fletcher Building or Kāinga Ora.
Julie Fairey, board chairwoman, said her entity wanted as many of the outcomes in the Three Kings plan as possible.
Puketapapa Local Board chair Julie Fairey. Photo / Dean Purcell
Those are to:
• Restore the mana of Te Tātua o Riu-ki-uta/Big King and enhance public open spaces; • Revitalise the Three Kings town centre; • Encourage high-quality residential development; • Improve connections between people and places; • Develop a sense of local character and identity around Te Tātua o Riu-ki-uta/Big King.
Once completed, the new housing is being integrated with Three Kings town centre, with a new sportsfield, roads and pedestrian connections, the board says.
"We are working with Auckland Council staff to point out opportunities to Fletcher as they undertake the works, in particular around open space and transport," Fairey said.
"We are having some good discussions with Fletcher and had a site visit recently where we were able to see the sites of the future sportsfields and the small park that will be on Graeme Breed Dr.
"There are some difficult negotiations underway between the council and Fletcher and we are kept up to date about those by staff. We support the approach that officers are taking and look forward to a mutually beneficial outcome that progresses the high-quality medium density neighbourhood development outlined in the Three Kings plan," Fairey said.
Caldera apartments with tower crane (left), new sports field grounds (centre and right). Photo / Greg Bowker
Winstone says Three Kings was one of the last Auckland strong and light-weight volcanic scoria rock quarries. It took ownership in 1922, supplying central Auckland.
The quarry was "decommissioned in 2015 after more than 150 years supplying aggregates into the greater Auckland region," Winstone says of its history.
Evans says the project supplied materials for many roads and building sites throughout many decades.
Now, it will take five to seven years to finish the project, he estimated.
