Eden Park concerts: Bid opens to stage 60,000-crowd concerts at stadium

Monday, 2 November 2020

Stuff survey finds most Eden Park neighbours are in favour of more concerts. First published May 2019

Crowds of up to 60,000 could attend weekend concerts at Eden Park stadium, if its bid to get approval for six a year succeeds, the trust board says.

The owners of the country’s biggest stadium opened its arguments on Monday at the start of a five-day hearing, which has divided opinion in the suburban area in which is sits.

The board’s lawyer Russell Bartlett QC said it was not asking for those most sensitive to the noise or disruption from concerts to change their minds.

Eden Park wants to be able to host six concerts a year but some residents are not happy about the plans.

Bartlett quoted an Environment Court decision: “We respect you. We understand you, but the outcome is not going to be controlled by those who are most sensitive.”

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Eden Park Trust Board CEO Nick Sautner, (left) and Russell Bartlett QC at the Eden Park concert hearing opening

Bartlett noted that one opponent’s submission talked of the successful blocking of a past proposed concert at Eden Park, by Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

Independent planning commissioners (left), David Hill, Kitt Littlejohn (chair) and Richard Blakey hear the Eden Park case

“I suggest there may not have been a single view in the potential receiving environment outside the park, that exposure to such music would have been an adverse effect at all,” he said.

Eden Park wants to expand from sporting clashes to staging concerts.

Eden Park’s bid to be able to stage six concerts has been conditionally supported by Auckland Council planners.

Bartlett said the trust board generally agreed with conditions the council proposed on noise limits, and how the concerts were spread out in the yearly calendar.

“Issues remain as to concerts being held on successive night – should there be limits on the number of concerts that may be held within a one week or four-week period,” he said in his opening submission.

The trust board cited the government’s new National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which replaces a 2016 version and argued for more housing intensification on key transport routes.

“A strong underlying theme of both the 2016 and 2010 documents is their challenge to long held views as to what is acceptable suburban and urban amenity,” said Bartlett.

Opponents to introducing concerts to the sports stadium will put their views forward later in the week, including nearby resident and former prime minister Helen Clark who favoured a downtown stadium, and housing being developed on the Kingsland site.

Clark and an expert witness will make a 30-minute presentation on Wednesday to the independent commissioners, with similar presentations for two, opposing neighbourhood groups.

An unscientific survey by Stuff reporters in 2019 found of 229 respondents who lived in the immediate neighbourhood, nearly 80 per cent supported the stadium's ambition to stage night-time concerts.

Only 14 per cent of residents opposed the stadium being allowed to stage up to six concerts a year, without having to go through a full planning approval for each one.

The Eden Park Trust Board considered concerts are crucial to expanding it revenue, which doesn’t cover it’s long term costs, prompting a $63 million bailout from Auckland Council including a loan and a grant.