Fight brews over Westfield mall growth

By ANNE GIBSON

A shopaholic's dream or an urban planner's nightmare? Westfield New Zealand is spending $1 billion expanding its 11 existing malls, banking land and building new centres.

Its plan includes a big expansion of its outdated Pakuranga mall in Auckland, which involves a proposal to buy a valuable 3.35ha block used for the mall's carpark and three streets which form part of the internal roading network around the mall.

This will enable it to build both out and up, possibly spending $100 million revamping the mall, which was built in 1965 and last refurbished in 1989.

Even the existing tenants agree that the mall desperately needs a facelift and is under attack from swankier developments such as AMP's new Botany Town Centre.

Westfield has not yet revealed its plans for the strategic corner site bordered by Pakuranga Rd, Ti Rakau Dr, Reeves Rd and William Roberts Rd. No application for resource consent has been lodged. First, it wants the surrounding land.

Manukau City Council owns the carpark and three streets which run within the block: Pepler St, Aylsebury St and Pennel Pl. Just before Christmas, the council publicly notified the proposal to sell the streets and carpark, resulting in submissions of support and objection. The council is in favour of selling the carpark and streets and is now undergoing the legal process to do so, which includes calling for public submissions and holding a hearing on the matter. It cites as a reason for the sale "enabling the more efficient development and use of the land." The council's corporate business committee recommended in June that the council sell the land.

The sale of streets is referred to as "stopping," meaning the streets can no longer be used as public access-ways.

Before any sale of the Pakuranga carpark takes place, the council must revoke its reserve status.

Westfield applied to Auckland City Council to "stop" streets around Newmarket as part of the deal to build its $450 million mall there, but is now reconsidering the proposal, after withdrawing on the eve of a full council meeting.

The Pakuranga debate will come to a head on Tuesday when Manukau City Council's hearings committee meets to discuss the sale.

Those in favour of the deal include plaza lessees Karon Colligan, owner of Petworld, Peter Guthrie of Unichem Life Pharmacy, Marla McLarin, owner of Aromas, and Gary Hobbs, managing director of Mississippi Ltd. Their identical submissions argue in favour of the street sales, saying Westfield is the "logical buyer." Without the sales, they express fears about the plaza's future and competitors.

"Without this land, any expansion of the existing centre is, we understand, unlikely," these lessees say in their letters to the council.

Benefits for the council in selling the land include being "relieved of the maintenance cost burden associated with the roads and parking. The existing town centre is fragmented and would benefit from being fully enclosed and in single ownership." This is a reference to the second block of shops on the plaza site, much smaller than the plaza and in a strip. Plaza tenants see this block as competition, but tenants on the strip are some of the major opponents of the street sales.

The plaza lessees cite future competition from two proposed town centres: Kiwi Income Property Trust's Sylvia Park at Mt Wellington and the Fletcher/Brierley proposal for Lake Park, an entire new suburb in the Mt Wellington shingle quarry.

"The centre needs to be developed in order to remain competitive against other centres such as these," the lessees say.

But others disagree.

One of the more vociferous opponents of the land sale is Pakuranga Community Board member David Collings, who sent a strongly worded two-page objection to the council, questioning its social responsibility and accusing it of being dominated by commercial interests.

"We do not elect councillors to have them wash their hands of responsibility and leave all developments decisions up to private enterprise."

He cites the redeveloped Glenfield mall as "a shopaholic's dream but a logistical nightmare, a concrete jungle of parking chasms and levels with a challenging series of snake and ladder ramps to and through the various tiers."

Central to Collings' fears are traffic management at the heavily used arterial route, the timing of the notification just before Christmas when most people were too busy to object, the need for the council to retain an interest in any major redevelopment, the need for more parks and green areas on the block and the community's interests.

"I am not against council selling the land at a later date or even negotiating certain criteria or placing covenants over parts of the parcel of land to meet with requirements set down by council as important in the development of the site. But an outright sale excludes council from any involvement outside criteria set down by the district plan."

He recommends instead a lease arrangement to Westfield, generating revenue as well as keeping the public interest safe.

Another opponent is Grahame Hamblin, owner of Hamblin's Pharmacy on the standalone strip block alongside the plaza. As a retailer on the same site for 40 years, he fears for the strip's future and his objection accuses the council of being motivated by "commercial reasons" and "failing to take into account the interests of the objector and other affected businesses."

Botany Town Centre owner AMP Henderson Global Investors is another objector, saying selling the plaza's carpark would "exacerbate the existing traffic issues in the area" due to a projected increase in traffic flows.

Revoking the carpark's reserve status would create other problems, AMP claimed: "If the land is not reserved, the public may be disadvantaged in a number of ways, including having to pay for private parking. There is no demonstrated public benefit to revoking the reserve status of the land."

Developers of the Mt Wellington quarry also objected. Winstone and Patras, companies seeking a plan change for the quarry, said the three public streets around the plaza performed a "key function by providing for public transport routes."

Kiwi Income Property Trust, proposing the Sylvia Park business centre, objected on the grounds that its interests would be harmed and cited traffic problems too.

The council has not disclosed how much it would sell the land for. Sales and acquisitions manager Grant Sextone said the sale of existing streets was unprecedented. He knew only of cases where the council sold land where streets were planned but not where they already existed.

Opinions on the sale will be heard on Tuesday in front of the hearing committee. The committee will report back by April 24.

Manukau City

Westfield