Designer detail in The Green environment

Kotare Drive’s wide welcome and feature trees create a perfect introduction to the boutique New Plymouth subdivision of The Green.

It’s like a golf fairway lined with trees –quite appropriate as the development here parallels the New Plymouth

MGolf Course’s 10th fairway and finishes with a view over the picturesque 10th green.

Stage One of The Green saw 23 lots released for sale in October last year, and now the 13 lots of Stage Two have been released to complete the project. There are just a halfdozen titles left in Stage One and the first Stage Two title has already been snapped up.

A landscaped public parking area inside The Green is the ideal place to meet the subdivision’s project manager, Zanta Jones, to discover this development. The parking area is found just beyond the first homes already under construction, and beside the cobbled accessway to the neighbouring golf course.

Features like this, Zanta says, will help attract people to the lifestyle on offer at The Green.

Golf club members living in The Green and in the nearby Links subdivision can drive their golf carts through the gate to the course, and others might wander up for a coffee at the clubhouse, she suggests.

‘‘We have carried out extra planting along the golf course boundary to freshen up the area and build on our relationship with the club. We want our people to use their facilities and the golf club being a success only enhances things for our landowners.’’

A big part of the vision held by The Green’s developers, who are a local family team, is community and The Green is their first major property project.

The design of the street and the detail of its presentation are key points of difference, says Zanta. ‘‘We have worked tirelessly with the district council on these design details … the wider berms and street plantings here are not the norm.’’

The road itself is narrower, influencing drivers to slow down and making it pedestrian- and child-friendly, she says. The wide tree-lined grass berms, often seen as an obstacle to easy maintenance, add an appealing sense of space. The planted areas feature native grasses and Nikau palms with smallergrowing magnolia ‘Little Gems’ planted along the lane. New Plymouth landscape designer Richard Bain of Bluemarble Landscape Architects led the overall design as well as the landscape detail for the subdivision.

The main road surface is a quality finish of black hot mix, with selected areas in contrasting exposed-aggregate concrete.

Not only are lots certified, with services and mailboxes provided at the boundary, but much of the boundary landscaping has already been completed by the developer.

Chunky timber posts, linked minimally with simple runs of tensioned wire, fence the lot boundaries in Stage One. This keeps a consistency of presentation and an openness to the street, says Zanta, and is included in the design guidelines for the subdivision.

The young Portuguese laurel hedging is already becoming established along Boundary fences in The Green are simple but effective - chunky timber posts linked by strands of wire. That enhances the sense of space in the new subdivision. the boundary fences and once mature will grow up to more clearly define each lot and offer a softer screening effect. ‘‘The hedging can’t be removed; only replaced. It can be grown up to 1.2m along the roadside and up to 1.8m between the lots.’’