1236 days ago

New multi-billion dollar village planned for Ōwairaka Mt Albert

Brian from New Lynn

Plans have been launched for a new multi-billion-dollar Auckland "village within a city, an urban kāinga" of 40 new apartment buildings with more than 3000 units on land within the established suburb of Ōwairaka Mt Albert.
Paul Majurey, Marutūāhu chairman, has announced a scheme with Ockham Residential for the newly-created, newly-named suburb, Maungārongo beside Unitec and the old Carrington Hospital.
The Marutūāhu-Ockham Partnership plans work in the next 20 years within the larger Te Auaunga Precinct: nearly 40ha around the ex-hospital and neighbouring university being developed by three rōpū - Marutūāhu, Waiohua-Tāmaki and Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei.
Majurey said the almost 11ha share of Marutūāhu land would bring new mixed-use buildings to the established Ōwairaka Mt Albert community.
"It's a staged development, a 10 to 15-year project which in time will have over 3000 homes across 40 buildings. It's a village within a city, an urban kāinga," said Majurey, also chairman of Eke Panuku Development Auckland.
Mayor Wayne Brown has called for Majurey and all Eke Panuku board members to resign.
Marutūāhu has master planning under way on the 10.5ha it has been allocated but hasn't released plans for all 40 buildings yet.
To begin, it will work at the Point Chevalier end of the site near the historic brick ex-hospital building, developing four new apartment buildings up to 10 levels high and with around 280 units. Those first four buildings will be developed on around 1ha of the 10.5ha rōpū site.
"Our allocation is nearly 11ha, a strip about 200m wide which begins beside Point Chevalier village and continues for 800m along Carrington Rd up towards Mt Albert/Ōwairaka," Majurey said.
Marutūāhu had given the planned village the name Maungārongo: "There are layers to its meaning of peace. It is an etymological nod to the famous Tūpuna Maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau," Majurey said.
Master planning for other planned projects are for a " metro supermarket, medical centre, creche, 24-hour gym, swimming pool, cafes, restaurants, commercial spaces, co-working offices, playgrounds, recreational spaces, community gardens", Toi's brochure says.
Toi [meaning art and knowledge] is a proposed 65-unit seven-level building with studio, one, two and three-bedroom places with commercial ground-level spaces including for food and beverage operations. The partnership has now begun marketing pre-sales there.
"We appreciate we're launching in a soft market," Majurey said of Auckland residential prices, dropping since the market peaked last November.
Studio units in Toi start at $530,000 and begin at $960,000 for a three-bedroom place but the aim is for them to be affordable, he said. The site will have cycleways and walkways, with some car parking in screened areas. Two-bedrooms start at $730,000.
"We don't want thoroughfares in terms of internal roads," Majurey said.
Ockham's Mark Todd said Toi's construction was scheduled to start next July and be finished 16 months later. That first building was designed by architect Hannah Chiaroni-Clarke and Majurey said the architecture would reflect te ao Māori including art, design and culture.
"This project is our contribution to an Aotearoa aesthetic," Chiaroni-Clarke said, "a reimagining of what multi-density housing can look like."
Majurey said: "The inspiration for Toi was from Hotunui", referring to the great wharenui of Ngāti Mauru/Marutūāhu inside Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum.
Exterior colours and design features on the four planned apartment buildings pay homage to growth and use phases of the harakeke plant:
• Mid-green new shoot phase for the first apartment block, Toi;
• Dark purple and red for the second 10-level building, representing the kakau and korari, the stalk and flower of the stem of the harakeke;
• Darker green for the more mature growth phase or awhi rito, the parent, in the third nine-level building;
• Silvery green representing the woven phase of the tūpuna or older leaves for the fourth seven-level block.

Housing Minister Megan Woods was at the opening of the partnership's new Waterview building last year.
Kōkihi is a 95-apartment scheme, the second by the Pākehā/Māori collaboration which is developing 541 affordable new units in four blocks, worth $300m and many KiwiBuild properties.
Woods said last year that Kōkihi was delivered ahead of schedule and an example of how to do great development.
"Exemplary developments" from the partnership completed were the already-opened Tuatahi in Mt Albert and now Kōkihi, "instantly recognisable with their brick facades and motifs and the next two will be equally impressive", she said of the under-construction Aroha at 1817 Great North Rd, Avondale and Manaaki at 9 Jordan Ave, Onehunga.
"We've taken seven houses and created 95 new apartments. There are 95 new apartments on land where seven houses once stood and it's 10km from the CBD, on cycleways, bus routes," Woods said last winter, emphasising the new uses of Auckland land with intensive housing models.
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei's investment arm is also planning its first 38 homes at the Carrington/Unitec site.
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Whai Rawa's property general manager Neil Donnelly said last month: "We're weeks away from applying for resource consent for the first 38 on the southern part of the site near Woodward Rd. It will be all terraced housing. We'd plan to start building next year."
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development says of the 39.7ha site: "The project is a large-scale urban development led by the three Tāmaki Makaurau rōpū of Marutūāhu, Ngāti Whātua and Waiohua-Tāmaki and their project partners. It is being facilitated by the Crown via Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development."
In 2018, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the development at Unitec's Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae in her Mt Albert electorate, saying the mix of affordable and open-market housing would include parks, shops and a new school.
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Poll: If we want to reduce speeding, what do you think actually changes driver behaviour? 🛻🚨🚓

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

In the Post's article on speeding penalties, the question is asked whether speeding fines are truly about road safety, or are they just a way to boost revenue for the Crown?

What do you think? Should speeding motorists receive speeding fines or demerit points?

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If we want to reduce speeding, what do you think actually changes driver behaviour? 🛻🚨🚓
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4 days ago

🎉 Riddle me this, legends! 🎉

The Riddler from The Neighbourly Riddler

He/She who makes it, sells it.
He/She who buys it, doesn't use it.
The user doesn't know they are using it.
What is it?

(Shezz from Ngāruawāhia kindly provided this head-scratcher ... thanks, Shezz!)

Do you think you know the answer? Simply 'Like' this post if you know the answer and the big reveal will be posted in the comments at 2pm on the day!

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11 hours ago

The Bible Declares That God is Bringing Jews Back To Their Ancient Land of Israel

Steve Bostin from Christadelphians New Lynn

The Bible reveals that God has chosen and cherished one specific people and one specific land to serve as the stage for revealing His plan and purpose to all nations. As we read in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse six, speaking of the Jews: “The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”

God’s ultimate purpose is to transform the world by establishing His Divine Rule in His new Kingdom based in Jerusalem. This will occur when Jesus Christ returns as King during a time of great trouble. At that moment, God will intervene to save first the Jewish people from destruction and gather them from all parts of the earth. Upon Christ’s return, God will put out a Call to be universally honoured, and a lasting peace will finally be established throughout the World. This has been his design from Creation which was told to the Fathers of Isreal first and then to the rest of the World by the teaching of Jesus and then his disciples in the New Testament.

**Exile and the Promise of Return**

Today, the Jewish people have often been cursed and despised among the nations. However, the prophets foretold that when Jesus returns, God will settle them in the land of Israel in security and safety. The historical rejection and crucifixion of their Messiah resulted in their greatest exile from the land, a dispersion that has lasted for approximately two thousand years.

Yet, in direct fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies, God is now regathering the Jews to their ancestral homeland. As the prophet Isaiah declares, “For the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land” (Isaiah 14:1). While Israel was scattered by God due to their failure to live obediently as His chosen nation, God promised He would never utterly forsake them. The prophet Ezekiel confirms this, stating,

“Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land” (Ezekiel 37:21).

**Fulfilment: The Modern State of Israel**

The promise of God to bring His people back to the land is proven and demonstrated by the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948. The Word of God declared,

“I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord, and I will cause them to return to the land” (Jeremiah 30:3).

Since 1948, we have witnessed Jews returning from all over the world to occupy the ancient land that was promised to the fathers of the nation: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This movement fulfils the words of Ezekiel:

“For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).

The undeniable return of the Jews to the land of Israel demonstrates that God is sovereignly guiding their destiny. Because we see these specific prophecies fulfilled, we can be assured that those prophecies yet to be fulfilled will also come to pass.

**God’s Unseen Hand in the Regathering**

The regathering of the Jews to the land of Israel is fundamentally the work of Almighty God in our time. It is not simply a political movement driven by the desire of the Jewish people to establish a nation and homeland. Rather, God’s unseen hand is behind the events that have led to the revival of the nation of Israel.

The Bible emphasises God’s personal involvement in this return through numerous passages:

- “Behold, I will save my people... and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem” (Zechariah 8:7-8).

- “I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return” (Jeremiah 30:10).

- “I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities” (Amos 9:14).

- “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel” (Micah 2:12).

**Conclusion: A Sign of Christ’s Return**

God is regathering Israel today. The very existence of the modern State of Israel is a clear and powerful sign that Almighty God is working amongst the nations. The Bible states that He “shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12). This prophetic work is underway.
Israel sees their return as prophetical, but few understand that God will create events where first they will eventually be humbled by her neighbours before Christ returns as their Saviour. Read Ezekiel 38 & 39 to gain an incite as to what God's destiny fot Israel is.

We have seen for the last 125 years, the call for their return to their Homeland and its subsequent founding. This is God's reassurance to the World that He'll bring the World under His Blessing. Because of this, we can be confident that Jesus Christ will soon return to this earth to establish the Kingdom of God, a time of peace and plenty for every nation.