Bunnings proposed development site Great North Road, Arch Hill
The four day hearing gets underway from today (Monday 7 October) on the Bunnings application for a mega store on Great North Road.
The Arch Hill Residents have done an amazing job mobilising opposition to the application and raising a fight fund.
Mike Lee and City Vision team on the Waitemata Local Board strongly support the residents against this completely inappropriate development for the Arch Hill area. Unfortunately it is going to be a David and Goliath battle. The residents have been forced to take legal action to fight the Auckland Council whose planning bureaucrats originally gave a non-notified consent to a non-complying Bunnings big box warehouse. Following this Bunnings applied for another resource consent for a much larger big box development which went out for only limited notification which as can be imagined angered most of Arch Hill as it will have a significant impact on this historic inner city suburb.
The Arch Hill team have outlined that they are pursuing all possible avenues to fight this development because:
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Bunnings in it’s present incarnation will not fit the residential interface. What many people don’t realise is that this project is HUGE, it will be the biggest building on the ridge by a country mile.
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it will cause traffic mayhem. The original consent had NO traffic analysis because it relied on present activity – a shirt factory!!. So no analysis of trailers/utes/timber trucks or large delivery vehicles that will be the predominate traffic for this development
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your street will be affected as people scramble to find a way out of the streets of Arch Hill and Grey Lynn ridge. The megastore proposal will gridlock the surrounding streets and routes.
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your properties WILL devalue as a result of these factors. If you are in a major traffic thoroughfare eg Great North Rd, or any street that BECOMES one as a result of this development – you can kiss goodbye $50,000-$100,000 off the value of your property.
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and because our great community will never be the same.
Hearing
7 – 10 October
9.30am start time
Residents are giving their evidence on Wednesday 9 October.
Venue: Auckland Council Civic Admin Building 1 Grays Ave, Level 15, Committee Meeting Room
