Next step for Balmoral
RETAIL giant The Warehouse is going to need to ‘‘be a bit more creative’’ with its proposal for a new shopping and apartment complex if it’s to win the full support of neighbours.
A two-building, 7130sqm complex including The Warehouse, 34 apartments and car parking will be built on the company’s Balmoral Rd site if the proposal gets the go-ahead from the Auckland Council.
The existing store closed its doors in February and would need to be demolished along with other commercial buildings, a house at 16 Rocklands Ave and the BP service station to make way for the complex.
‘‘We’re happy with the site being developed. It needs a tidy up, nobody has any issues with that,’’ Rocklands Ave woman Sandra Frakes says.
But The Warehouse needs to reconsider parts of its plan, she says.
Rocklands Ave would be a main service entrance and a truck ramp would run along the eastern boundary of the development behind Mrs Frakes’ house.
‘‘If you’ve got great big trucks driving up a ramp at all hours it’s going to be noisy.’’
The service entrance could be built further away from houses on Balmoral Rd, residents say.
Insufficient parking for the complex is the residents’ other main concern.
The 34 apartments and various shops will share 234 car spaces.
‘‘There will be a huge overflow on to the street,’’ another Rocklands Ave resident, who doesn’t want to be named, says.
Neighbours first became aware of The Warehouse’s intentions to develop the site when it lodged an application in 2010 to make a change to the district plan to allow for the expansion.
Residents say The Warehouse has been willing to work with them during that time and they’re hopeful about the process going forward.
The plan change application was put on hold until the council received a traffic report in November.
People were able to make submissions on it and the The Warehouse’s resource consent application, in February.
The resource consent application is now on hold.
A spokesperson for The Warehouse says the company prefers to allow comments from interested parties to be channeled through the resource management processes rather than engage in debate in the media.