A huge housing development proposal in their tiny cul-de-sac was once the worst nightmare of a group of Auckland neighbours.
But eight years later, a decaying home on the $2.6 million site of the project has started attracting robbers, squatters, and now a suspected drug-growing operation, putting the Birkenhead neighbourhood through “hell”.
“To be really honest, it would be brilliant if someone put a match to it and the whole thing just burned down and we were left with an empty property,” Zion Rd resident Jane Allpress said, who has been fighting the development since it began in 2015.
“It’s living under siege,” Allpress said.
“We have all become hyper-aware of the comings and goings in the street to keep everyone safe.”
Alongside thieves and squatters, multiple neighbours told the Herald they believed the vacant and derelict home on 9 Zion Rd had been used in recent months as a full-scale cannabis growing operation.
The overseas owner of the property confirmed police contacted him with concerns about criminal activity on the property.
“We got a police call about, like, two or three weeks ago, reporting that someone was doing criminal things over there.”
Police told the Herald they cannot respond to requests relating to specific addresses for privacy reasons and could not confirm whether officers had been called out to the address.
Zion Rd resident Carl Scott has had several run-ins with people acting suspiciously on the property over the years, and his property, trucks and boats have become a target for thieves.
“The word’s got out amongst criminals. Not one [person] has been charged yet or anything. It’s like it’s a career option, burgling places,” Scott said.
Scott believed it’s been left to the residents to protect their street.
“I think that the worst impact it’s had on me is [when] lying in bed at night, it’s hard to sleep when any noise is potentially a criminal on your property.”
“We don’t want to appear to be victims, it’s just a frustrating thing because we can’t do anything. Even if we have [caught] the guys and were holding them on our street - they’ve been caught red-handed burgling - the police let them go. It’s one after another,” Scott said.
For two weeks near the start of the year, groups of people appeared to be working inside and outside the property. A few months later they returned and appeared to be doing landscaping, neighbours said.
“They had a full three-metre skip outside recently, filled with pot plants; three cubic meters of soil and stalks,” Scott said.
Some neighbours now believe the site was used for a comprehensive cannabis operation, as remnants of lamps, ventilation systems and cannabis leaves remain on the property.
The overseas owner of the property said no one has been working on the property or living on the property in recent years to his knowledge.
“Our original plan [was] to develop the property, but the market is changing a lot and we’re still doing the resource consent. That’s why we haven’t done anything [to the home].
“No one’s living there. We don’t have any workers over there.”
Another resident on the street, who didn’t want to be named, said a group of neighbours confronted burglars around six months ago during a brazen midday robbery.
“On a Sunday afternoon around 2pm, we caught two burglars red-handed, taking furniture out of the downstairs garage.
“A couple of neighbours confronted them, and one of the neighbours had a fight with one of the guys, gave him a hiding and ripped his shirt off him and sent him on his way.
“The two criminals, you could tell were sort of serious criminals. They were in their mid-50s, meth addicts, had no teeth, real rough guys.”
The neighbours reported the burglaries to the police, but were told that because the property owner didn’t choose to press charges, there was nothing further the police could do.
“[The owners and developers] don’t seem to care. They’re not on good terms with the people on the street because of the ongoing [development] battle... if anything, they’re probably happy to upset us,” the resident said.
A fast-tracked proposal for a four-storey development on properties 5, 7 and 9 Zion Rd originally alarmed residents in 2015, who argued that the housing intensification would be too dense for the narrow one-way cul-de-sac, which already struggled with a lack of parking.
That application expired and the residents fought back again alongside Sentinel Planning, which was independently assessing the developer’s resource consent for Auckland Council in March 2018, when an 85-apartment development proposal across the three properties was not made public.
A different scheme was lodged in December 2020. This time, Sentinel Planning is working with the developers.
The council confirmed it is currently assessing an application to develop the site to provide for a reduced number of 49 residential units.
Resource consent forms on the Auckland Council website list Sentinel Planning as the agent and Zion Homes Development Limited as the company behind the development project. Auckland Council said it has not received any complaints related to 9 Zion Road.
Sentinel Planning director Simon O’Connor said the company had no involvement or knowledge of any issues at the property.
“Our client Zion [Homes] Developments Limited, who are the applicant for a proposed development, are not the current owner of any of the properties in question. They simply have legal agreements in place to purchase the properties at some point in time.”
Zion Homes Development is directed by Qi Zhu and has three listed shareholders: Wei Wang, Cheng Fan and Ozac Business Development.
A listed contact for Zion Homes Development who also is the managing director at Ozac Business Development, Opal Zhu, was contacted but wouldn’t comment on the situation.
“We have already asked the police to go there [9 Zion Rd] and have a check, and [if there’s] anything further you need, [talk] to the police because we don’t know,” Zhu said before hanging up.
Jaime Lyth is an Auckland-based reporter who covers crime. She joined the Herald in 2021 and has previously reported for the Northern Advocate.