KEY POINTS:
Developer Tony Gapes is hitting back at growing political criticism of his plans for 146 apartments at Orakei after the latest broadside blaming developer greed and bureaucratic ineptitude for blots on the landscape.
Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee yesterday said Auckland City Mayor John Banks' description of
the proposed development as "frightening" was absolutely valid.
"The area does lend itself to apartments as part of a sensible urban redevelopment, but 146 apartments in five massive blocks in such a sensitive harbour edge locality is just over the top and will have a negative impact on the visual amenity and traffic flows," Mr Lee said.
He said the word "greed" was not mentioned in the Resource Management Act but developer greed and bureaucratic ineptitude were evident in the architectural disasters built across Auckland in recent years.
Mr Gapes, who finds himself a political target on top of an angry backlash from hundreds of local residents, yesterday said he was creating a world-class development on a special waterfront site just five minutes from downtown Auckland.
The development, he said, was nothing compared with Mr Banks' plans for the area during his previous term as mayor.
"If he had had his way there would be a massive, six-lane highway running through the site with hundreds of thousands of cars going through it every day," Mr Gapes said.
He was responding to Mr Banks, who took the unusual step of criticising the proposal and Mr Gapes' company, the Redwood Group, at the start of a resource consent hearing on Monday.
Mr Banks said the developer's assertions that the Orakei development would be a quality project were hard to believe.
"Artist impressions of these flash glass and concrete boxes ring hollow in the face of past buildings from Redwood Group."
Mr Banks was referring to the bulky Scene One, Scene Two and Scene Three apartment blocks in downtown Auckland and the leaky Eden One and Eden Two townhouse developments in Mt Eden.
Mr Gapes said Mr Banks had called Redwood "one of the good guys" when he opened the company-built Foodtown supermarket on Quay St and mentioned the nearby Scene apartments approved under his leadership.
Responding to the criticism, Mr Gapes said he had scaled back earlier plans for 202 apartments in nine blocks to 146 apartments in five blocks designed by award-winning architect David Mitchell, of Mitchell & Stout Architects. The development opened up views to the waterfront and provided a public coastal esplanade.
At the start of the second day of the resource consent hearing, Mr Gapes' lawyer Christian Whata said Mr Banks' statement was unprecedented and sought an assurance of independence from the three commissioners and councillor Toni Millar.
Chairman Les Simmons said Mr Banks' comments were "irrelevant as far as our considerations are concerned".
The hearing centred on traffic and parking issues yesterday with two experts hired by Redwood Group saying the proposed development would have little effect on traffic along Orakei Rd.
