‘Mad decision’: Auckland mayor slams rejection of $100m building

Sunday, 23 March 2025

Mad, bizarre, foolish: just some of the words by which Auckland mayor Wayne Brown describes the rejection of a $100 million office building planned for the central city.

Brown has also taken aim at those behind the ruling, saying that while councillors used to sit on decision-making panels the sheer volume of resource consents have seen them replaced by “supposedly independent commissioners”.

“There was a time when these were semi-retired surveyors, planners and engineers with plenty of practical experience but those days have gone too.

“Attend a few courses and bingo, you’re a commissioner, bringing your lack of practical experience plus all your inbuilt prejudices to the process and with it some fairly weird and unexpected results.”

Tipped to be built on an empty section on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd, near one of the new City Rail Link railway stations, the 11-storey building was planned by the $800 million-plus James Kirkpatrick Group.

Built from wood, a lower carbon material than the usual concrete, the developer expected it to be New Zealand’s tallest mass timber commercial building with a 6 Green Star rating, and would provide office space for more than 400 people.

But Auckland Council independent commissioners quashed the plans.

Submissions against were from Waitematā Local Board members Alexandra Bonham and Allan Matson. Bonham refused to comment and Matson couldn't immediately be reached.

The Civic Trust Auckland also opposed the scheme, saying it would have negative effects on the heritage values of the areas.

“The principal concern for the board is the scale of the development,” the commissioners’ report said.

The plans didn’t meet tests under the RMA and were contrary to the Auckland Unitary Plan objectives and policies, the commissioners wrote.

And while Brown is pleased that the developer will now appeal “this mad decision” in the Environment Court, he’s also keen to clarify the environment in which the building would sit.

To the east of the empty site is a carpark, he says, and to the west is what he calls “another plain eyesore that has been tarted up to house the excellent Ponsonby Doctors premises.”

That neighbours “another architecturally uninteresting building housing among other things Brown and Thomson, the consulting engineering practice I founded many years ago.”

Suggesting that is “probably the only item with any historical interest on this block of land”, Brown continues to paint a picture.

“Within a hundred metres of the proposed site are some of the largest apartment buildings in NZ, the biggest of which being the 20-storey Hereford: my home for the last seven years.

“Opposite the Kirkpatrick site is a typically ugly service station next to a fine old block of shops housing a group of cute little cafes and [a shoe repair store] next to the renovated building that once housed a Thai restaurant.

“So the area has a charming mix of old buildings and huge newer apartments giving the area a mix of styles and sizes, a bit like the mix of humanity that make K Rd so appealing.”

Ultimately, he says, while he’s both an enthusiast and owner of a heritage-listed building, he can’t see how the proposal threatens either the character of the area nor the scale given such large apartment buildings around it.

Chris Bishop, the minster charged with overseeing the Resource Management Act, (RMA) says the case “represents everything wrong with our current planning law”.

“A gravel pit has been prioritised ahead of an 11 storey, Green Star office block next to a rapid transit stop in a central part of our largest city.

“The decision is indefensible and nuts, and makes me even more determined to ensure our RMA stops such nonsense.”

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