Locals upset at building plan

Southpark Corporation's John Sax at Kensington Park in Orewa. Photo / Dean Purcell

An Orewa eco-friendly development has received resource consent for a 14-unit apartment block - before a public hearing on the merits of relaxing building controls.

Resident Barbara Ferguson said consents the Auckland Council granted without public input pre-empted a hearing next month of the Kensington Park application to change district plan rules.

"Laws controlling development are meaningless when a developer can push through regardless of what the district plan provides," she said.

The former Rodney District Council publicly notified the developer's bid for a private plan change in August.

Mrs Ferguson said 115 written submissions were made, 80 per cent of which opposed the application.

She objected, with 10 neighbours in her street, whose houses overlook the former camping ground that is now earmarked for 690 resort-style homes.

However, while residents prepared for the plan change to go to a public hearing, the developer was also chasing resource consents.

"We now have consents granted for buildings 4.39m taller than the current district plan allows," said Mrs Ferguson.

"We are asking for the consents to be put on hold until the plan change is heard."

John Sax, of Southpark Corporation, bought the 15.4ha development in June 2009 from the receivers for Patrick Fontein's Kensington Park Properties.

Mr Sax said that the resource consents granted were for a fair portion of development.

But the company was going ahead with the plan change, believing it would give more flexibility as a second-generation masterplan evolved.

The special zone sought allows buildings up to 20m tall.

Hibiscus & Bays Local Board chairman Julia Parfitt said the board had passed on to the council public concern over building heights and the scale of earthworks.

"We felt it should be a notified application and hoped our concerns would be forwarded to the independent commissioner."

Council resource consents manager Heather Harris said the commissioner approved two consents on a non-notified basis, because their effects would be no more than minor and were similar to the site's existing consents for 254 households.

They were assessed against the current district plan.

The Resource Management Act allowed developers to lodge both consent applications and private plan change requests.

They were separate processes, with different legal requirements for processing.

For example, the council had 10 days to consider whether a resource consent should be notified and if it was non-notified, it had to be decided in a further 10 days.

Private plan changes took much longer to process.