Parnell residents have packed a public meeting tonight over concerns about high-rise apartments in the city’s oldest suburb.
Deputy Prime Minister and Epsom MP David Seymour has organised the meeting at the Rose Park Hotel in response to the impact of the latest urban development plans in the wealthy suburb where homes sell for up to $20 million.
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Seymour is worried that under the plans, much of Parnell, north and west of the glamorous address of St Stephens Ave, has been zoned for six-storey, 50m apartments and townhouses in Auckland Council’s draft replacement plan.
Council maps show proposed 50m housing zones extending down existing single-house streets and through the business mixed-use zone, an area Urban Auckland chairwoman Julie Stout this week described as an exciting opportunity for people to live close to work or study, and to shop and eat out locally.
A similar packed meeting was held in Mt Eden last week, organised by the Character Coalition - comprising about 60 heritage and community groups - to discuss what could be done to avoid the worst consequences of the latest proposal for intensification and loss of ‘Special Character’ areas of villas and bungalows.
Seymour told the Herald ahead of the meeting that given Parnell’s recent experience with serious flood damage, a major sewer-related sinkhole, and sewerage leaking on the shoreline, the local infrastructure was plainly not up to such intensification.
“I also believe it will bring a significant change to the character of New Zealand’s oldest suburb,” he said.
The Act leader supports much of what RMA Minister Chris Bishop was doing to “restore commonsense to housing policy”, particularly by removing the previous Government’s one-size-fits-all intensification rules.
The Herald has produced its own interactive graphic, based on council-provided data, where readers can see how the changes affect their neighbourhood. Look up your street here
“That was a big step forward,” said Seymour, who is trying to prevail upon the council and Bishop to make changes to the city’s new draft plan.
Last month, Auckland councillors agreed to begin a replacement plan allowing capacity for up to two million homes by accepting Bishop’s offer to opt out of the previous Government’s medium-density residential standards (MDRS) rules permitting three-storey homes everywhere. Opting out required the council to adopt new planning rules enabling equivalent housing capacity.
Councillors are expected to vote on September 24 to abandon the MDRS and proceed to public consultation on the draft replacement plan.
Seymour told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking yesterday he was concerned the new plan required almost no greenfield development, where infrastructure costs could be recovered from new residents, unlike in old suburbs.
“In Parnell, a building fell into a sinkhole two years ago after a 120-year-old brick sewer imploded.
“We do need to make it easier to build a home, but what we absolutely cannot do is dislocate planning and infrastructure provision, which will lead to a total disaster,” he said.
Seymour plans a similar meeting in Remuera next week.
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