Todd Property unveils $70m seaside village plans
‘‘Overall, what we’ve taken is an unloved and unused area of existing farmland and created a major recreational destination.’’ Managing director Evan Davies
Developer Todd Property is building a new $70 million seaside village in north Auckland – and a $20m road to connect it.
Todd Property has been building at Long Bay in north Auckland since 2010.
On Thursday, it announced plans for the ‘‘heart of the community’’, which would include space for about 28 businesses such as restaurants, a supermarket and retail shops.
The company was also partnering with Auckland Transport to build a road to feed into the popular Long Bay Regional Park as part of the development.
Todd Property managing director Evan Davies said while plans for a village had always been thrown around, this was the first time they had been finalised.
‘‘We’ve always said there would be a heart to the overall community we’re developing, but we have not previously talked about what that would look like.’’
The village was due for completion in 2019 and Davies said the plan was to try to co-ordinate this with the opening of the new road.
‘‘While its primary objective is to provide that new community heart at Long Bay, given it’s a seaside village adjacent to the most popular park in the region, it will be quite a destination,’’ he said.
The construction of the ‘‘$20 million-plus’’, roughly onekilometre road was being funded by both Todd Property and Auckland Transport.
Once linked to a new council road, it would act as a second entrance to the regional park, alleviating the traffic queues commonly seen during the peak of summer.
‘‘The park is an extremely popular recreational facility across the region and that level of popularity with restricted access has caused issues in the past,’’ Davies said.
The new road would also link to the existing Glenvar Rd and concerns had previously been raised about whether that could handle increased traffic flows.
Davies said while that fell outside the company’s development area, Todd Property would support improvements to the road and intersection with East Coast Rd. Parts of the fill removed while constructing the road would also be used to create a new playing field adjacent to Long Bay Primary School.
Todd Property’s general manager of land development, Stephen Martin, said there were no concerns about whether the new road would be able to handle increased traffic flows over time. ‘‘It’s been designed and built to handle the Long Bay area,’’ he said.
Davies added: ‘‘And designed to handle any expansion that might happen in the future.’’
Martin expected the new road to take about 4500 vehicles per day, alleviating pressure on roads around Long Bay College and the primary school.
He said the cost was relatively high because the site was ‘‘geotechnically challenging’’.
Davies was looking forward to the finished products.
‘‘Overall, what we’ve taken is an unloved and unused area of existing farmland and created a major recreational destination, while housing a significant number of Aucklanders.’’
In the seven years since work started at Long Bay, more than 450 homes have been built. Another 1700 are expected by 2025.