Muso's talent has no Enz

Neil Finn. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Songwriter extraordinaire Neil Finn is also proving himself a property developer - at least when it comes to baches.

An Auckland architect has lodged a resource application on behalf of Finn, his wife Sharon and Michael Smith to develop their two-bedroom hillside bach in Piha - they want to add decks and extensions.

The bach sits on a hillside above another property owned by the trio, on Piha's Marine Parade, and which was purchased in 2000 for $190,000. A Mediterranean-style, two-storey home sits there now, with plenty of room to pitch tents. It has a CV of $442,000.

Small change for a big-time muso and his chandelier-designer wife who also own two properties in Parnell worth more than $2 million.

Correspondence between Constable Hurst Architects and the Waitakere City Council since 2007 proves the recession hasn't dented bach renovation plans.

The Finns, and Smith, want to add new windows, 2m wide timber decks at the front and rear of the house and the two bedrooms will be serviced by a tank water supply on the site, just 3m from the crest of the slope. Several pohutukawa trees and grass vegetation area to the west of the property will be left untouched.

Building on a fixed sand dune could have its fair share of problems in future years. A geotechnical engineer inspected the site and already noticed evidence of shallow slipping at the toe of a steeper western slope.

In a Listener article in September, Sharon Finn spoke about her first song, Little by Little, and Neil's latest CD that was recorded over Christmas. Eighteen musos and their families - including Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead and Wilco members - rented "eight houses around Piha" while they recorded 7 Worlds Collide - The Sun Came Out.

Piha is the country's most famous black sand surf beach with an international reputation - in part thanks to TV show Piha Rescue. It is just 40 minutes from Auckland city but is notorious for its bad rips and currents. Every year people drown and fishermen fishing off Lion Rock are washed to sea.

And while Finn's plans haven't caused controversy, some other developments in the settlement certainly have.

Sports and TV star Marc Ellis and four surfing friends spent almost three years and $200,000 fighting legal appeals and obtaining resource consent to have a new cafe built in Piha.

Ellis pulled out of the venture but his friends, Richard Hatton, David Bensley, Dr Christian Fougere and Andrew Higgs, eventually gained permission and building is well under way.