The site plan for 162 lots in a subdivision between Willowbank Ave and Ericksen Rd, Napier. Image / Napier City Council
The site plan for 162 lots in a subdivision between Willowbank Ave and Ericksen Rd, Napier. Image / Napier City Council
Napier suburbs Maraenui and Te Awa will become almost one if a 162-lot lifestyle village goes ahead in the sprawl across the horticultural land between the two southern Napier suburbs.
But, described by council principal resource consents planner Paul O'Shaughnessy as "one of the biggest residential subdivisions we've had fora while", its future hinges on a proposal to "gate" the community.
The development of the subdivision of 162 privately-owned lots, targeting the over 55s, is proposed by Durham Property Investments Ltd for a block from numbers 16 to 38 Willowbank Ave and stretching east to Ericksen Rd, Te Awa.
If it goes ahead it will bring more than 600 apartments and units under development or planned specifically for the retired or nearing retirement sector on the farmland bordering southern Napier from Te Awa Ave to the Hawke's Bay Expressway.
The site of a 162-lot gated community proposed for sprawling Napier suburb Te Awa. Photo / Paul Taylor
Already being built are Summerset's retirement village of about 320 homes, a 20-apartment memory-care centre, rest home and hospital-level care in the southern quarter of rapidly-growing Te Awa, and Bupa's complex of 118 units and 49 care beds less than 2km away between Ullyatt Rd and the Hawke's Bay Expressway on the outskirts of Pirimai.
Details of the Willowbank Ave development – with entrances off both Willowbank Ave and Ericksen Rd - were included in the agenda at for a meeting of the Napier City Council's Future Napier Committee on Thursday.
But a resource consent application is currently on hold pending a developer's decision on whether to proceed on a publicly notified basis, as directed by council staff based on the gating plans.
O'Shaughnessy reported that while the proposal is for a subdivision of individual-owned lots, it includes an internal road network which would be privately owned and managed by a body corporate rather than being vested in council.
He said that was not legally possible, the site being private land by virtue of the proposal for security gates.
The site plan for 162 lots in a subdivision between Willowbank Ave and Ericksen Rd, Napier. Image / Napier City Council
"Council have made their position clear that they do not favour owning 3 Waters assets that are located in private land," his report said. "Council's position is that all 3 Waters infrastructure should be held and managed either by council (including all roads vested in council) or alternatively all held and managed in private ownership."
He told the committee: "Unless the gates disappear we will not be vesting the road in the council."
He said the developer is now considering options, but in relation to the current proposal, O'Shaughnessy said: "The community should have a say."
The area is included in the area of the Ahuriri Structure Plan once billed as creating a new suburb to meet the city's future residential property demands.
O'Shaughnessy's report was part of a new process of reporting to councillors on resource consent activity, which today included confirmation of consent for a related and neighbouring 19-lot residential development by the same developers, and a retail development including a supermarket nearby on the western corner of Ericksen and Kenny roads.
