Sylvia Park design fault leaves disabled shoppers out in cold

The barrier is too low to admit Shirley Williams' modified van. Picture / Dean Purcell

Design faults at Auckland's newest shopping centre, Sylvia Park, have effectively barred disabled people from a supermarket and forced suppliers to load goods into many stores through the shopping mall.

The Pak'n'Save supermarket, which opened on August 1 at the Mt Wellington complex, has put up barriers shutting out all vehicles more than 2.1m high from both levels of its carpark.

After the Herald enquired yesterday about a complaint by local foster-parent Shirley Williams, project director Alan McKinnon ordered the barrier raised to 2.3m "immediately".

But the barrier will still be too low for Ms Williams' Toyota Hiace Jumbo van, which has been modified to take a ramp for her son's wheelchair. The van is 2.3m high and Toyota has advised her not to go anywhere with a clearance of less than 2.4m-2.5m.

Mr McKinnon said it was now "absolutely standard practice" in new malls for small specialty stores to have access only through the mall itself, with rear access reserved for larger stores.

Sylvia Park will have 12 rear-access loading bays to serve its four anchor tenants and 180 specialty stores.

"Generally for the small specialty stores, access is from the mall out of hours," he said. "It's a way to save on space to include it in the tenancy itself, so there are no corridors down the back of the centre."

CCS Auckland, which issues parking permits for disabled people, said hundreds of wheelchair users in Auckland would be barred from the new Pak'n'Save by the parking height restriction.

"They just haven't thought about the huge number of disabled people who have hoist vans or roof-rack vehicles," said CCS regional manager Chris Potts.

The height barriers at both carpark entrances hang loosely on chains so high vehicles can actually push under them with only minor scraping.

A van with a roof-rack and the aerial on a four-wheel-drive vehicle knocked the barrier in a short period while the Herald observed the site yesterday.

The higher parking level is only slightly above the road and is roofless, so the only reason for the restriction is that the concrete deck cannot carry heavy vehicles.

"The code requires you to design a carpark for a private motor vehicle," Mr McKinnon said.

"A ute or a van could easily have a very heavy load. The deck isn't designed for that."

He said the building code required a clearance of 2.2m for an upper deck, so the barrier would be lifted to 2.3m, but there was no need to change the 2.1m restriction on the lower deck.

The code also requires a clearance of 2.5m for disabled carparks so that wheelchairs can be hoisted on to or off roof-racks, but Mr McKinnon said that restriction did not apply to the carpark entrance.

Ms Williams, who lives nearby in Panama Rd, said her van had to be high to allow her to move around easily inside it to chain her son's wheelchair to the floor.

As well as being wheelchair-bound and deaf-mute, her son is a haemophiliac so she has to take care that he doesn't get cut.

The van has also been fitted with extra seats for some of the thousands of children she has looked after in 40 years as a foster-parent.

Auckland City Council's manager of building control, Ian McCormick, said the council would talk to Sylvia Park about it.

A disabled member of the Auckland District Health Board, Barry de Geest, said his van was stuck a few weeks ago at Dress-Smart in Onehunga, where the roof gets gradually lower as you enter the carpark.

"It's the first time I have ever been grounded. I just went and parked ... a couple of streets over."