Wait for quarry decision
THE shape and form that 1500 new Auckland homes will take is inching closer.
Fletcher Building’s masterplan to develop the Three Kings Quarry was before independent planning commissioners this week.
The hearing focused on one of the company’s two private plan applications.
Plan modification 372 includes land currently owned by Auckland Council and the Crown, resulting in a land swap. The viability of this is being assessed by Auckland Council.
If the proposal receives the green light from the commissioners then three mains areas, including the quarry, would be rezoned to residential, open space and business.
The panel deliberating.
Fletcher Building’s chief operating officer for housing Steve Evans says the decision will simply be putting ‘‘more paint on the artwork’’ and won’t bring things to an end.
If appeals are lodged the path forward could be drawn out, Evans says.
‘‘We all wait with bated breath for the commissioners to make a decision.’’
Both plans involve three to four-storey apartments, multi-level terrace homes and 10-storey cascading apartments set against the slope of the company’s 15.2ha quarry site.
is
now
The application was notified in late 2015 and renotified in January of this year, with 191 submissions received.
Members of the Three Kings community have long been at odds with Fletcher Building over development of the quarry.
Dominating the heated relationship is concern over the level the quarry will be filled to. EnviroWaste lodged an appeal to the Environment Court in 2011, allowing several community groups to form a court case against Winstone Aggregates, a subsidiary of Fletcher Building.
The company got approval to fill the quarry although conditions and contours were defined.
Both the South Epsom Planning Group and Three Kings United Group submitted at the hearing this week.
Architect and landscape architect Richard Reid spoke at the request of the community groups.
He was influential in Wellington City Council’s decision to investigate other options for the controversial Basin Reserve flyover in 2012.
Reid
told
the commissioners filling the quarry to 15 metres below Mt Eden Rd would ‘‘fundamentally compromise the development’’.
The company has also carved off a special housing area to fast-track development. Fletchers requested to defer the plan modification, 373, which would see the company only develop its land.