Public-funded hideaway for police split for homes

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Half the chalets in a police holiday resort, which was funded by public donations, will make way for a $3 million luxury housing development.

The resort at Stanmore Bay, on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, was built in 1987 after $3 million was raised as a thankyou to the police for 100 years of service.

The Police Centennial Trust Rest and Recreation Centre has eight self-contained chalets and a recreation hall on a 1.5ha site at the water's edge. But about a third of the centre's land, containing four chalets, has been sold to a developer who plans to build 11 homes.

The chalets will be moved to make room for $250,000 homes, which developer Coastal Properties says will be set in a "tropical-style resort," with shared tennis and petanque courts. The Brightside Rd development will be fenced off from the centre, but will have a path through it to the beach.

The sale has raised a few eyebrows among Whangaparaoa residents who recall giving to the fundraising campaign, which included a national lottery and a $250,000 grant from the Auckland Harbour Board.

One resident, Brian Smith, who represents Rodney District on the Auckland Regional Council, said he had heard concerns that the centre's land sale was against the spirit of the original fundraising.

This was to provide a permanent holiday resort for "stressed-out" police and their families.

But the sale to the developers was defended yesterday as being in keeping with the spirit of the trust deed.

The manager of the Police Welfare Fund, Peter Hayes, said sale proceeds would go into making a nicer resort for rest and recreation from frontline duties.

He said the welfare fund took over the centre in 1987 with money owing, and had spent a lot of money keeping the chalets modern. It now wanted to get the best use from the site.

Accordingly, the fund was seeking resource consent to convert the centre's recreation hall into five beachfront apartments.

Mr Hayes said this meant there would be no loss of accommodation capacity and land sale proceeds would pay for the conversion.

Two of the four units on the sold land would be barged away next month to another police resort at Whangamata, and similar use was planned for the other two units.

Full use of the recreation hall had been prevented because of night restrictions in the residential area.

Plaques in the hall that carry the names of trust donors will be displayed in the foyer of the proposed apartment block.

The 1.5ha for the centre originally cost $300,000, but Mr Hayes would say only that the parcel sold had realised market valuation.

Police Centennial Trust chairman Sir Alan Hellaby said last night that he did not think any fundraiser would object to the sale. "I think most of us would simply be delighted they keep on getting on with it."

The driving force behind the project, local body leader Alan Brewster, died in 1993. His committee's advertisements upset police recruiters with an emotional pitch to donors.

They read: "If you had a job where people regularly assaulted you, your holidays were usually cancelled, you were forced to work anytime of the day or night, your family was ostracised and no one wanted to see you unless they needed you, sometimes you'd need a bit of a rest."