LAND OF OPPORTUNITY
Aformer strawberry field in sought-after Mt Albert on the market for the first time in 60s years offers the scale of development opportunity that is nothing to trifle with.
These two neighbouring properties long held by the same family are part of the legacy of the late Samuel Cope, who had the foresight to buy up multiple parcels of land around Auckland, building blocks of flats or shops on many of them.
Ray White agent Josh Lowe says: “It is so rare to get this amount of land, more than 3200sq m zoned Mixed Housing Urban, in prime Mt Albert and it’s likely a developer will buy the whole lot.”
He says a feasibility report suggests the potential to create at least 20 two or three-bedroom townhouses on the combined land directly opposite wairaka Park, subject to council approval. Right now on 63a there is an existing block of five two-bedroom units on 1793sq m currently earning rental income of $120,904 per annum, while 63b is a vacant section of 1474sq m. There is the option of buying the properties separately but Josh imagines the scale of the combined opportunity will see a developer buy both Mount Albert Grammar-zoned properties.
One of Samuel Cope’s grandsons, Kelvin Cope, says after selling a family farm up in Kaikohe his grandfather came to Auckland and started buying land around Mt Albert, Pt Chevalier, Hillsborough and Mt Roskill.
Kelvin says of his grandad, who built blocks of shops or flats with the help of his four sons, daughter and builders, “He was a man of many trades who could turn his hand to anything.”
These properties at 63a and 63b were part of a larger land holding Samuel purchased which had been a strawberry field. The family carved off other sections behind these, on which they built other blocks of flats. Samuel and his wife were living in one of the modest twobedroom flats when he died.
Kelvin says: “I used to come over to this area a lot to visit my grandparents and I can remember when I was a kid the vacant land, which is now parklike, seemed jungle-like with trees and bushes.”
Samuel gifted this and 63a’s block of brick flats the family had built in the 1960s to Kelvin’s parents, Gwen and John, as an early inheritance.
Kelvin says: “I used to go with Dad to collect the rent at this block of flats on Thursday nights after dinner, back in the day when everything was cash. I remember one of the tenants who did window washing at traffic lights used to pay his rent with coins.”
Each flat in the tidy block of five has the same layout, a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom and there’s a block of four carports elsewhere on this property. Kelvin says: “When Dad was younger he had plans to build another block of flats on the bare land but that never happened, so now my parents are selling both properties.”
Set date of sale: Closes
December 17
Contact: Josh Lowe, Ray White, 0211 888 991; Bryce Taylor 021 273 3990.
When I was a kid the vacant land, which is now park-like, seemed jungle-like with trees and bushes.