Northridge tenants can stay open

By ANNE GIBSON

An Environment Court decision delivered yesterday allows tenants in the Northridge Plaza strip shopping centre at Albany to continue to trade, despite a challenge from giant mall owner and developer Westfield NZ Ltd.

But it also requires the North Shore City Council to re-examine the resource consent granted to allow the shopping centre to be built.

The non-notified resource consent was granted for the shops to be built on Don McKinnon Drive - near the 37,000 sq m Albany Mega Centre - last year.

The David and Goliath battle was between Westfield, with $1.3 billion worth of assets, and property investor and developer Neil International Ltd, which general manager Keith Maddison estimated was about one tenth the size of Westfield.

Mr Maddison, claimed victory after yesterday's conclusion, saying delays were caused in leasing the 20-shop centre because of the Environment Court case.

Only a quarter of the shops at Northridge Plaza are leased.

The lawyer acting for Neil International, Russell Bartlett, said Neil had also lodged an application with the North Shore City Council to amend and clarify the resource consent which allowed the Northridge Plaza to be built.

Westfield - through St Lukes - bought 21ha of Albany land from Neil in 1996 for more than $20 million. It has plans for a $310 million mega-mall of about 60,000 sq m, expected to be built in the next five years.

As well, Westfield is planning a new $450 million super-mall in Newmarket, has just opened a $100 million refurbishment of its Glenfield mall and is spending $80 million on its Henderson mall. Its other North Shore mall is in Takapuna.

Westfield wanted to stop some of the retailers trading in the 7000 sq m Northridge Plaza because it said the shops did not comply with planning regulations.

The Northridge Plaza was granted a resource consent for a bulk retail centre, but Neil claimed this did not limit its tenants to selling only bulky goods.

At issue was whether the retailers were selling bulky goods, or smaller items which could be sold from a Westfield mall. Also at issue was the definition of a bulk retail centre.

Westfield NZ Ltd, represented by Christian Whata, took action against Neil International Group and various retailers under the Resource Management Act, seeking an enforcement order and a declaration from the Environment Court over trading in the Northridge Plaza.

Westfield joined its mall-owning entity St Lukes Group Ltd to take the case against Neil and retailers Paper Plus, Pumpkin Patch, Edex Toys, Saturdays of Takapuna, Just Kids Ltd and G & M Ballentyne Ltd.

The North Shore City Council also presented evidence at the Environment Court this week, lawyer Bill Loutit saying the council "was put under considerable pressure by Westfield" to take action against the Northridge Plaza.

The council decided against this, Mr Loutit said.

The Environment Court case opened on Tuesday and concluded with an oral decision yesterday from Judge John Bollard and commissioner Ian McIntyre. The Environment Court will review matters again in March.

Giving evidence for Westfield, former St Lukes Group chief executive officer David Kennedy accused Neil of "actively pursuing specialty-type retailers" for its shopping centre.

Mr Kennedy, who is now general manager for Westfield New Zealand, said Westfield had been "forced to bring these proceedings in light of what appears to be a clear likely breach of the resource consent ... with serious impacts on confidence in the planning regime and the intentions of the North Shore City Council for the Albany area and various adverse effects on the environment."

Westfield called various other witnesses, including traffic and retail consultants.

Neil's witnesses included retailers, a planner and a Neil executive, Guy Perrett, who challenged Mr Kennedy's claim that Westfield malls provided a sense of identity in rapidly growing communities.

Evidence was presented from retailers saying their occupancy costs in the Neil shopping centre were about $300/sq m but that in Westfield malls they would have to pay between $900/sq m and $1700/sq m, making their shops uneconomic.

One retailer, Graham Ballentyne of retailer Ballentynes - with 15 shops throughout New Zealand - said he was a Christian "and my beliefs rule out any possibility that my stores will trade on Sundays."

But Westfield malls required seven-day-a-week trading, he said.

"Therefore, Westfield can be assured that Ballentynes' presence at Northridge is not taking a potential tenant away from them."