A fight is brewing in the pretty township of Warkworth, 45 minutes’ drive north of central Auckland, over the future of a large block of farmland just outside the urban part of town.
The dispute encompasses not just the future use of the land, but the status of “prime soils”, the extent of urban sprawl and the legality of Auckland Council’s planning process.
Arvida, a retirement home company, owns 55ha of a 140ha block on Matakana Rd, between Sandspit Rd and the Warkworth Golf Club.
Last month it applied to the governing body of the council for a private plan change that would rezone the entire block as Residential: Mixed Housing Urban.
Arvida, which has 7000 residents living in 35 villages around the country, wants to build a “retirement community” on 22ha and sell its remaining 33ha to developers. The zone change would also allow the owners of the other 85ha to develop their land.
If the 140ha was completely built over, this would roughly double the size of the existing Warkworth township east of the old state highway.
Led by Mayor Wayne Brown, the council voted 17-3 to reject Arvida’s plan, with Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson abstaining.
The mayor and councillors were not opposed to the retirement village. But they objected to rezoning the whole block. Not a single councillor spoke in favour of the plan and Simpson did not explain why she abstained.
Brown summed up the views of many when he said, “If they [Arvida] want to build a retirement village, why don’t they just apply to do that? This [application] isn’t about town planning. This is about speculation.”
He was referring to a process known as “land banking”. In this, property on the fringes of the city is bought cheaply in the expectation it can be sold for a much higher price when urban sprawl reaches the area.
Arvida announced today that it will appeal the decision to the Environment Court.
The company’s chief executive, Jeremy Nicoll, told the Herald he had received legal advice the council had “exceeded the requirements of the Resource Management Act” and its process was “unsound as planning practice”.
The Herald asked him why Arvida didn’t do as the mayor suggested, and limit its application for a zone change to the land on which it wanted to build a retirement village. Was it land banking?
“We have bought a farm,” he said. “There are pieces we won’t use and we will sell them. But no, we won’t land bank.”
In a media release, he added, “The reason we’re seeking a rezoning of the wider area around our retirement community is to allow a more comprehensive, coordinated approach, rather than piecemeal, ad hoc development.”
To the Herald, he said, “Best practice is to get it all zoned and then everyone can benefit.”
Last month Brown said he was “firmly opposed” to this line of thinking.
Most of the 140ha block is zoned Future Urban, but 29ha is outside the Rural-Urban Boundary (RUB) and zoned Mixed Rural. The Arvida proposal would effectively move the RUB north.
At the February meeting, officials presented the council with four options: adopt the proposal outright, reject it outright, put it through a complex resource-consent process, or accept the proposal.
“Accept” is different from “adopt”.
“Adopt” means approve: the council would change the zoning in the Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP) and development would proceed.
But “accept” does not imply a point of view. It means Arvida’s submission would be publicly notified and presented to independent hearing commissioners. They would hear from interested parties and make a decision.
This is the normal process for a proposal like this and it was recommended by council officials. But the council said no.
As the council’s planning director, Megan Tyler, told the governing body, one reason officials favoured “accepting” the proposal was that straight-out rejection would probably trigger expensive court action.
That action has now started.
Through his office, the Herald asked the mayor why he rejected officials’ advice to put the proposal through due process.
The office initially declined to comment, but later supplied a statement in which Brown said he would follow the court process “closely”. In the February meeting, he said the council “should not be put off doing what we think is right by a fear of legal action”.
After this story was published, Brown contacted the Herald directly to say that because of the “stupid decision” in another recent hearing he had “lost faith in independent commissioners”.
He also said, “Of course they are land banking, which they expect to be more profitable than what they say they are there for, which is elderly care.”
He did not think the housing development was needed in Warkworth and repeated he was open to talking with Arvida about a proposal limited to an “elderly care facility”.
One reason the officials did not recommend Arvida’s plan be adopted was that it compromised the council’s own plans.
Warkworth’s population is expected to double over the next 20 years, which is why some of its rural land is zoned Future Urban. But in the Future Development Strategy 2023-2053, “Warkworth North” is not supposed to grow yet.
The area “is identified to be ready for urban development from 2035+”, says the plan.
Transport, water and wastewater infrastructure will all need to be upgraded, but Arvida’s proposal requires the timetable for this to be sped up and funding to be found.
Nicoll told the Herald they’re on to it. “We’ll put the wastewater and stormwater into our own site.”
He said his company expects to pay approximately $2.6 million in council development contributions and Watercare growth charges, $5.9m for a pump station and rising main, $4.4m to upgrade Matakana Rd and $1.3m for a new road on its own land.
Officials noted this in their report: “The Applicant has also made commitments to upgrade public infrastructure to support the development.”
“However,” they added, “at this stage these commitments are not contractually/legally binding, and there is no current funding available for all the necessary infrastructure (in particular transport infrastructure) to support the plan change.”
Councillor Chris Darby was blunt about what this means. “There’s no public transport and there won’t be,” he said. “And if there is, the money to pay for it will come from Māngere and Manurewa.”
The officials said the lack of sufficient infrastructure was grounds to reject the application. But in line with their overall recommendation, they thought the better course of action was to test that conclusion with “a detailed merits assessment ... through the submission, hearing and decision-making process”.
They noted that Auckland Transport, Watercare and the council’s Healthy Waters unit, which manages stormwater, all largely agreed with this.
The extra 29ha also exercised several councillors’ minds, for two reasons.
The first was that the extra land includes some that has been identified as “prime soil” under the AUP and “highly productive” under the National Policy Statement on Highly Productive Land.
Nicoll disputes the significance of this. “Our analysis shows we are talking about only 0.8ha,” he said. “It’s not horticultural land. It’s a farm. It’s used for grazing.”
But the council does not have its own analysis and relies instead on the NZ Land Resource Inventory (NZLRI). That inventory says the 29ha “includes” prime soils and a recent decision of the Environment Court made it clear NZLRI maps “must be relied on” in the absence of anything more detailed.
The second concern about including the extra 29ha relates to sprawl. Warkworth has nearly 840ha of land zoned Future Urban and officials said it may not need anymore.
Councillor Shane Henderson said last month, “We should send a strong message: the city cannot sprawl. Watercare has a map, showing where the infrastructure is and where it isn’t. It isn’t in Warkworth. Every time we have this conversation we should look at that map.”
Councillors Andy Baker and Greg Sayers did not agree. Although they didn’t speak up for Arvida, they did vote against the mayor’s motion to reject the company’s plan. They represent, respectively, Rodney in the north and northwest and Franklin in the far south and east of the city.
Those two wards include almost all the highly productive land and the RUB and most of the areas into which new housing is now sprawling.
Meanwhile, change is on the way from the Government anyway. Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop may be a fan of density but he also likes Auckland’s growing sprawl and has called it a valuable part of the “going for growth” strategy. He wants to abolish the RUB altogether.
And the rules for elite soils are “transitional”, because they were developed by the previous Government.
What’s best practice for decisions like this?
Council officials, along with Arvida, say the best approach is to give everyone the chance to have their say in front of independent commissioners. The mayor and council say that sometimes elected officials have to draw a line in the sand.
Or, in this case, in the grass.
This story has been updated to include comments from Mayor Wayne Brown.
Simon Wilson is a senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.
Police: There was evidence to prosecute the officer, but it wasn't in the public interest.