A big piece of land in Pukekohe once home to onions and potatoes sold at auction on Tuesday for $9.66m, over double the $4.155m CV, as residential development further blurs Greater Auckland’s urban/rural divide.
Fifteen bidders competed for the 4.35ha of flat, food-producing land at 290 Victoria St West which was bought by a developer who had missed out earlier in the week on a 5388sq m site on the corner of Great South Road and Manuroa Road in Takanini, which sold for $8.3m.
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While the Pukekohe property is likely destined for housing, that won’t happen overnight, says Bayleys agent Shane Snijder, who marketed both properties.
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A plan change is needed to enable housing to be built on the Pukekohe land currently designated future urban, but the intent of that zoning is to allow urbanisation to take place, he says.
However, while Pukekohe and the whole of Franklin is undergoing unprecedented growth and development, in fact land in Pukekohe is in short supply.
“Anything to the west of this property will be very hard to turn into housing because the Government and the council are stopping prime horticultural land that produces food being turned into housing so land supply in Pukekohe is very, very tight.
“We’ve got phenomenal growth for our area. When you look at Pokeno we’ve got in excess of $200m dairy factories and the residential has gone absolutely crazy there.
“You come up on the (Bombay) hill and there’s been a new KFC put up there and some new speciality shops and Waitomo Fuels.
A block of land in Takanini, South Auckland, fetched $8.3m at auction last week. Photo / Supplied
“You come onto the flat there (Drury south) and Stevensons are doing their industrial subdivision, Classic Developments are doing several hundred homes in that area, a little bit north of that Kiwi Property have bought 33 hectares to do a planned shopping centre and then Fulton Hogan and Oyster Capital have got a lot of land under contract where they’re trying to do a plan change to turn that into residential and they’re working with the Government and the council.”
Infrastructure is a major challenge at the moment, however.
The New Zealand Herald reported last month Auckland Council is opposing the private plan changes by Oyster Capital, Fulton Hogan and Kiwi Property because it can’t afford the estimated $1b needed for infrastructure.
Snijder says more developments are ongoing, such as on the western side of the motorway where the new Auranga subdivision will have “well and truly a lot of houses”, and to the west of that is Paerata Rise with a proposed 5000 new homes, as well as new schools.
“If you look at Auckland on a map three areas having significant growth are the North Shore, West Auckland and South Auckland.
“It’s the fringes of Auckland that are experiencing most growth and with the developments that are taking place, people want to be part of the growth.
“The investors at the auction understand you always buy a property on the fringes of the city and you wait for the development to come out to you.”
Snijder has worked in Pukekohe for 12 years and says it’s a cool town with great schools and beaches: “It’s a really good place to bring up your family, that’s for sure.”
While as yet unsure of the buyer’s plans, Snijder says the Pukekohe land lends itself to residential because it has three prime road frontages.
The site, in the same family for 70 years, has a shed and the old packhouse where they used to store potatoes and onions after harvesting.
Land sales with room for housing development are not the only land sales being grabbed in Pukekohe.
A single section, one of the last in the sought-after master-planned Anselmi Ridge community to the east of the town, sold last month by Barfoot & Thompson for $613,000.
