Zone will allow big blocks in suburbs

By BERNARD ORSMAN

The Auckland City Council is set to rubber-stamp a new zone today that will allow a wave of suburban multi-storey housing anywhere in the city.

This follows community concerns about entire suburbs in Auckland City being bulldozed for "slum" apartment blocks being rejected by the four councillors who heard submissions on the residential 8 zone. Community groups have called the council's behaviour dictatorial.

The zone will free developers, who are running out of commercial land to build apartments, to target leafy suburbs for intensive housing.

The council will today also rezone the first area residential 8 to allow Housing New Zealand to transform its rundown 3.7ha Talbot Park housing site in Glen Innes and increase the number of properties from 167 to 205.

Community groups opposed the zone on a "blanket "basis across the city, fearing it would create slums. Developers believed the council was being too prescriptive and wanted to be able to build even more intense housing with fewer controls.

But the four councillors acting as commissioners, Juliet Yates, Bill Christian, Sherryl McKelvie and Noelene Raffills, rejected arguments from community groups and developers and pretty much stuck with the council's own proposals for residential 8.

The zone allows for residential housing developments of up to three storeys in residential areas, up to four storeys near town centres and up to five storeys within 2km of the central business district. The zone will only apply to sites of 1ha or more. Anyone can apply to rezone an area anywhere in the city.

Likely suburbs for rezoning are the central business district, Newmarket, Glen Innes, Panmure, Mt Wellington quarry, Remuera, Ellerslie, Sylvia Park, Grey Lynn, Pt Chevalier, Mt Albert and Onehunga. Other candidates - if drainage problems can be fixed - are Mt Roskill, Sandringham, Morningside, Balmoral and Royal Oak.

These are suburbs the council wants to cram more people into as the population of the city grows from 400,000 at present to 530,000 by 2021.

Rowan Forbes, whose submission was rejected by the commissioners, was shocked to learn the council would consider destroying his Newmarket neighbourhood of traditional villas and bungalows when he sought protection.

"Once they start demolishing this character area and replacing it with high density housing it will be a sad day for Auckland. Wellington has got great character and it's the same with Sydney but Auckland seems to be intent on destroying these types of areas," Mr Forbes said.

The chairman of the St Heliers-Glendowie Community Committee, Maurice Twomey, said the new zone was the most "revolutionary" planning change in 50 years. His group's submission expressed concerns at the "contemptuous, almost dictatorial" way the council was racing ahead to implement the new zone.

"We know the council has to fit more people into the city but it should be paying more attention to community concerns," Mr Twomey said yesterday.

Rendell McIntosh, of the Parnell Community Committee, said his group did not want to open the gate for cheap, inferior housing but the council was dictating what they thought was best without listening to affected communities.

Mrs Yates, the senior commissioner for the new zone, could not be reached yesterday.

However, she has previously defended the zone, saying it was designed to protect communities from tower developments. Rules would be set for visual and sound privacy, private open space and streetscape appearance through an urban design guide.

"Any suggestion that we're about to create high-rise slums or ghettos is totally irresponsible," she said last month.