Downtown Auckland carpark stoush heads to High Court

Sunday, 9 June 2024

An artist impression of Precinct Properties’ redevelopment of the Auckland Downtown Carpark site.

Auckland Council faces a judicial review of its decision to sell the Downtown Car Park.

The High Court hearing is scheduled to take place on August 5 and 6.

Save The Queen Street Society Incorporated accuses the council of failing to identify all reasonable options when deciding to sell the property.

Auckland Council will go to the High Court in August over its decision to sell the Downtown Car Park with plans for it to be demolished.

The $122 million sale to NZX-listed Precinct Properties is considered a done deal, after councillors voted in November to waive two previous sale conditions.

Commercial landlord Andrew Krukziener is taking Auckland Council to court over its decision-making process in the sale of the Downtown Carpark Building.

But incorporated society, Save The Queen Street Society, filed the application for a judicial review of the sale, and has accused the council of failing to abide by local government legislation.

The society’s secretary, property developer and landlord Andrew Krukziener, said the council failed to fulfil its obligation to seek and identify all reasonable and practicable proposals when deciding to sell the land.

The hearing is set down for August 5 and 6, and Krukziener estimates it will cost the society $500,000.

Krukziener made a last minute pitch to councillors before their vote last year, and threatened the current legal action if they supported the sale.

He told councillors, instead of demolishing the parking building, it could be kept by building a structure over the top of the carparks with high rises, such as those already planned by Precinct, built on top.

Residents and visitors to Auckland city are to be hit with new fees for parking on the street overnight and at weekends and public holidays.

That proposal would keep around 1000 public parking spaces and could net the council an estimated $350m, he said.

Precinct Properties announced to NZX in November that the $122m purchase price is payable at the end of 2025, and Auckland Transport will continue to operate the carpark until then.

Auckland Council’s Downtown Carpark Building has nearly 2000 spaces but will be demolished as part of its sale and redevelopment.

Also in November, mayor Wayne Brown said Precinct had offered to make 200 short-stay carparks available in its Commercial Bay precinct, which the council could manage for public use.

Krukziener believes the planned removal of the parking building, will damage retailers by sending shoppers elsewhere, and require truckloads of material to be taken to landfill.

A spokesperson for Auckland Council’s development arm, Eke Panuku, said the agreement executed with Precinct Properties in November 2023 for the sale and redevelopment of Downtown Carpark includes that the carpark cannot close before 30 April 2025.

In the meantime, design work is continuing on the project, the spokesperson said.

“The Court has made no orders preventing Auckland Council or Eke Panuku from continuing with its work and decision making.”

It’s not the first legal proceedings Save The Queen Street Society has brought against the council.

The society filed applications for a judicial review and interim orders over the pedestrianisation of Queen St.

The council successfully defended the application for interim orders, and the claim was later settled with minor changes to the works agreed with the society, a council spokesperson said.