- Kāinga Ora is selling Auckland land intended for an 80-apartment building due to a change in priorities.
- The 2082sqm New Lynn site, bought for $2 million in 2021, is marketed as a development opportunity.
- The sale includes conditions to preserve the historical Oag’s Building facade.
Kāinga Ora is selling off a large chunk of Auckland land it had earmarked for a nine-storey building with about 80 apartments to help solve the country’s public housing shortage.
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The state housing provider purchased the 2082sqm site on Totara Avenue, in New Lynn's Merchant Quarter Precinct, from Auckland Council for $2m in 2021.
Kāinga Ora and Auckland Council said at the time of the sale that it was a way to address New Zealand’s housing shortage.
The plan had been to develop a state-of-the-art mixed-use building with apartments on the upper levels and commercial spaces on the ground floor, with a finish date of 2025.
The land is in the Merchant Quarter in the heart of New Lynn, and its zoning allows for large-scale developments. Photo / Supplied
Little appears to have been done at the site, and the property has returned to market with Bayleys agents Mike Adams, Wesley Gerber and Jason Seymour, who are pitching it as a large-scale development opportunity.
Kāinga Ora general manager of urban development and delivery Nick Howcroft told OneRoof the agency was selling the land because it was no longer a priority site for state housing.
The sale would now “create opportunities for others to develop this prime residential and commercial site”, he said.
Howcroft would not say what the price expectation was or how much had been spent on the site until after settlement because it could impact the commercial sale process. The property has an RV of $5.1m.
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“Any completed site works, along with concept design and feasibility reports, would be included in the sale,” he said.
A unique and perhaps challenging condition of the sale is that the Oag’s Building could not be demolished because of its historical significance.
Tyrone Newson, the head of development at the Auckland Council’s Auckland Development Office (formerly Eke Panuku), said the building's facade must be incorporated in any new development and remained a condition of the sale.
The Totara Ave site was first listed for sale last year with another block of land across the road at 41 McCrae Way.
Auckland Council has just sold the adjacent development site on McCrae Way for an undisclosed price. Photo / Supplied
Newson told OneRoof the McCrae Way site had been sold separately, subject to an agreement on a development plan.
Newson said the council was not a developer, but was focused on transforming underused surplus council land into housing, commercial spaces and public amenities through the sale of council assets.
“On occasion, where it makes sense to purchase land from another party to support our town centre regeneration work, we will do so, for example to enable a larger development footprint to achieve a better public outcome. But that is the exception rather than the rule.”
The sale of the Totara Way land is part of a larger sell-off by Kāinga Ora following the Government’s shake-up of the agency, which has resulted in both state homes around the country and development land being sold off.
Last week, the New Zealand Herald reported that the agency had listed a 1.6ha vacant site at 80 Don McKinnon Drive, in Auckland's Albany, after scarping plans for a “twin towers” housing development. Kāinga Ora paid almost $20m for the property in 2019.
Earlier this year, Kāinga Ora took a massive hit on a 2000sqm vacant site on Adelaide Rd, in Mount Cook, Wellington. The agency paid $9.875m for it in 2022 and resold it for $4.625m in October last year.
Kāinga Ora had planned to build 280 homes on a former Caltex petrol station site, near Wellington’s Basin Reserve before the plans were canned.
- 10--22 Totara Way, in New Lynn, Waitakere, is for sale, tender closing June 25
