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New suburb earmarked for quarry

In the next few weeks, a subsidiary of New Zealand?s Fletcher Building will apply to Auckland Council for a controversial private plan change, seeking to have the zoning for a former quarry changed to terrace housing and apartment buildings.
Fletcher Development wants to fill Auckland?s Three Kings Quarry, which is 34m deep. If successful, that could allow between 1200 and 1500 freehold townhouses and apartments, some up to 10 levels high, to be built as well as new links to through to shopping centres and sports grounds.
The project could be worth around $NZD1 billion ($AUD920 million).
That figure comes from multiplying the maximum residence number by an average estimated $NZ800,000 price tag, although no prices have been disclosed.
“Price is about diversity of product. You can’t fill this up with two-bedroom places. It has to be twos, three, fours and with a diverse community you make it more sustainable,? Fletcher Development?s general manager Bernie Chote said.
“Around 85 per cent will be apartments and 15 per cent terrace housing of two to three levels.”
Sore point
Although not immediately visible from Auckland?s Mount Eden Rd because of a tree-covered boundary, the quarry, which has been worked since 1927, has been a sore point in the area for years. When it became clear the quarry was coming to the end of its natural life some locals wanted the entire 21ha site to become a park.
San Francisco-based, New Zealand-born landscape architect James Lord of Surfacedesign, working with Melbourne?s dKO Architecture and planning experts Tattico, have designed the project.
Garry Bryant, president of the Three Kings United Group, Auckland councillor Cathy Casey and Harry Doig, the Puketapapa Local Board deputy chairman, have questioned Fletcher?s proposal. Bryant and Casey charge that the proposal gazumps the board’s precinct plan, some months away from an announcement.
They say the apartments and houses look like military barracks and the scheme lacks imagination, has no solar power or water recycling, would create traffic congestion, clog up Mt Eden Rd and does not create good walking links up to the Big King.
Source: The New Zealand Herald

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