Hotel: Rosemary McQueen on consent decision LUC 2012-212 (41 Wharf St)

41 Wharf Street, Dunedin (DCC WebMap)

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Copy supplied.
Also published at Otago Daily Times (page 17).

### ODT Online Wed, 26 Feb 2014
Opinion
Hotel decision was legal, not political
By Rosemary McQueen
Two related misapprehensions run through nearly all the comment on the application to build a 27-storey residential building in the industrial zone.

The first is that the reason the development was rejected was that a minority of noisy nay-sayers objected to the proposal. Yet, had 500 supporters put in submissions and only 4 or 5 naysayers, the decision would have been the same. The decision was not made on the basis of counting heads (though no doubt the planners were gratified that the District Plan’s provisions were so whole-heartedly supported by the populace) but on the basis of law. The developers want to build their accommodation block in an industrial area. Residential activity is specifically excluded from this area and only allowed at the discretion of the court hearing the application. Discretionary treatment can only be accorded if the effects of the variation to what is allowed are minor and the general intention accords with the aims and objectives of the district plan. The applicants’ arguments to this effect were rejected at law – not by counting heads. Until that decision is found to be wrong, or those aspects of the proposal change, it can not proceed.

There is also a view that the the city council could and should have found a way of overturning – or at least of getting round – the planning committee’s decision. This is a misapprehension because the decision is a legal one that can only be overturned by a higher court and the council is not a court. The negotiations that have been taking place have been around trying to find a site and design that complies with the city’s district plan and the developers’ needs. By describing the setback to the development as “red tape” the ODT implied that the development’s lack of progress since being rejected by the planning committee is caused by overweening bureaucracy. But Ms Song has made clear that the site and design are not negotiable. How can the lack of progress be the fault of red tape when the impediment is so clearly the developers’ intransigence, despite having had their application for that site and design turned down because it doesn’t meet the law?

By insisting the proposal is non-negotiable during their discussion with the city, the developers appear to believe that overturning the planning decision is on the discussion’s agenda and within the council’s power. Instead of dismissing any such suggestion, the ODT and the Chamber of Commerce have encouraged them in the view that the council can change or flout the law in order to allow the development to go ahead. Fostering these misapprehensions has led to unnecessary division in the city. It’s time to stop accusing bureaucrats and antis of holding up progress and start explaining why changes to our built environment are not effected by political whim, but are, and need to be, conducted by rule of law that has undergone full democratic process.

ODT Link

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Related Posts and Comments:
14.2.14 Hotel: The height of arrogance
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel: The height of arrogance

Don’t care how much you’ve spent on slapping Dunedin’s face, chook.
GO AWAY —give your ‘Swarovski crystal’ to some other place.

Bored housewife syndrome:
If you’ve spent a million already your consultants are out of control.

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### ODT Online Fri, 14 Feb 2014
Harbour hotel now ‘a long shot’
By Chris Morris
The woman behind the plan to build a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin says the proposal is now “a long shot”. Betterways Advisory Ltd director Jing Song, of Queenstown, told the Otago Daily Times she was frustrated by the delays and cost involved, after spending more than $1 million so far on pursuing the project at 41 Wharf St.
Read more

DEPLORABLY, Mayor Cull has held several meetings with the developers in Auckland “to try to advance the project”. The Mayor deliberately mixes HIS politics with a resource management matter, SHAME.

*Mr Rodgers is Mr Cull’s personal solicitor.

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Related Post and Comments:
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Shane McGrath —Gelber LuftBallon (Dunedin Research Project)

Artist sculptor Shane McGrath successfully built and flew, with the help of friends, a helium-filled yellow blimp today at Customhouse Quay in Dunedin.
Relatively still air conditions twice allowed the ‘friendly’ LuftBallon to gain maximum height – simulating, indirectly, the proposed height (96.3 metres) of the hotel and apartment tower planned for the vacant site across the road at 41 Wharf Street.
McGrath had earlier made sure the planned flight received CAA clearance.
The blimp contained smaller balloons filled with the gas to guard against a sudden downing. A small team of men, including McGrath, coordinated the length and position of the guide-lines, keeping the blimp off surrounding buildings and roads, and out of harbour waters.
The bright photogenic structure – alternately Lemon, Zeppelin, Chrysalis – hovered impressively overhead for half a day, long enough for professional photographers and camera people to take stills and recordings from the site and prominent vantage points around the city.

Images: Elizabeth Kerr

Gerard O’Brien’s outstanding photographs place the Gelber LuftBallon in the city context – see tomorrow’s Otago Daily Times.

█ Enter *hotel* in the search box at right to learn more about the proposed hotel and apartment building for 41 Wharf Street.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Ballooning! —playing off Betterways

While the DCC ‘red carpet’ gets gazumped by Christchurch mayor Bob Parker’s trip to Sister Cities exploring joint ventures with Chinese investors to build HOTELS (and more!) . . .

. . . independent artist sculptor Shane McGrath has a crack at ‘height indications’ down at the Dunedin waterfront on ● MONDAY

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Originally from Melbourne, McGrath completed his Master’s in Fine Arts at Massey University in 2009 and is establishing a trans-Tasman practice. In March 2012 he completed a major new public art work for a park in central Wellington, was an artist in residence at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery in Melbourne and had work included in the Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney.

29.11.10 3News — The focal point of Shane McGrath’s Fight or Flight exhibition is a phallic-shaped zeppelin. Video

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects

The following images (scans of scans…) were supplied by Madeleine Lamont in submission on application LUC-2012-212. The text of Madeleine’s submission has been lightly edited for posting. Her submission as lodged (No. 422) can be viewed here: Submissions 401 to 509 (PDF, 6.9 MB).

1. View from Mornington Park, off Eglinton Rd between Stafford and High Sts

2. (zoom) View from Mornington Park, off Eglinton Rd

3. View from Bellevue St, Belleknowes, just below Highgate

4. View from Adam St, near Russell St, City Rise

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Submission to Dunedin City Council
Re: Public Notice of application for Resource Consent Section 95A Resource Management Act 1991
Resource Consent Application No: LUC-2012-212
Name of Applicant: Betterways Advisory Limited
Location of Site: 41 Wharf Street, Dunedin, being the land legally described as
Lot 3 Deposited Plan 25158, held in Computer Freehold
Register OT17A/1107.

I submit in the strongest terms, that resource consent for the building of the proposed hotel structure on the above site, NOT BE GRANTED because of the structure’s significant, detrimental effects on the city landscape.

If the applicant had had the courtesy to supply comprehensive spatial design drawings of this structure in the context of the whole city, it would be obvious to all how inappropriate in SCALE this structure is. At 96m in elevation, the structure overbears the entire city and harbour basin, obstructing the entire city centre’s experience of the harbour, the peninsula and Dunedin’s nestling hills, offering an absurd conflict with the human scale and nature of both the historic and current character of city structures and city activities.

Of greatest concern are the western and eastern elevations of the structure. I submit Photo 1 taken from the lookout in Mornington Park, a view celebrated by Dunedin artists numerous times over the years, by visitors to the city and of course, by the hundreds of Dunedin households. The approximate silhouette of the proposed structure is drawn in to show the obstructive nature and ‘selfish’ size and position of the hotel. The scale of the building is completely inappropriate. Photo 2 is from the same position, zoomed in and marked with the Wharf St railway lighting tower measured at 35m used to indicate the dominance of the proposed 96.3m hotel structure. The eastern elevation from the peninsula suburbs too, will experience the overscale of the building against the city and hill suburbs.

Photo 3 taken, on zoom from Bellevue Street, Belleknowes, again includes the structure’s silhouette scaled off the marked rail light tower. If the cladding of the proposed tower is mainly glass, with it being so high above the city, the western sun will create issues of sun strike on roads leading down from the suburbs, and obviously, serious effects and obstruction to the views enjoyed by thousands of households.

Photo 4 is from lower down the Belleknowes spur, from Adam Street, with an estimated, but conservative profile (photo lacks a known structure to measure off) drawn. Again the aesthetic values and scale of the harbour basin are entirely offended by an ill considered structure.

What concerns me most about this application for resource consent to build an inappropriate structure (by position and scale), is the inadequacy of the supplied application documents to present the structure in the context of the city. Widely published images are fantasy, such as an elevated, high angle view from well above the harbour, attempting to diminish the perceived size of the structure. The only humans to view the structure from this angle, position and elevation may be those wealthy enough to, by helicopter. These images are notable for their lack of contextual structures that make, in fact, the character of Dunedin. Buildings of 2, 3 or more storeys set the scale appropriate for development and are absent from the application documents precisely to obscure the real affect this structure will have on the city’s landscape and its aesthetic values. Design consultancy information only focuses on the very immediate surroundings and contains no spatial plan for this giant structure in the context of the city. I have attempted to show how 120 degrees of the city centre and its hill suburbs will have their harbour and peninsula views and joy of place seriously obstructed. The peninsula suburbs will view a structure absurdly contradicting the city structures and rounded hill suburbs. All incoming transport links, as a special feature of this city, enjoy delightful revelation of the ‘great little city’, its harbour and the waters of the Pacific. These heartening views enjoyed by all, citizen and visitor, will be irretrievable spoiled and dominated by a tower designed (and possibly built) for a city the scale of Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.

Lastly, the attempt at this sort of inappropriate development is an affront to the careful planning [of] the city’s forefathers to create an egalitarian community enjoying the delightful natural environment Dunedin offers. The proposed structure stands at 96m. This is only a matter of metres below the elevation of much of the Green Belt. Jubilee Park is at a 100m elevation. The Green Belt designed and implemented so long ago and maintained for the benefit of all, is carefully placed so that wherever a person stands in the city centre they can look up the hills to the skyline and see only green, the suburbs beyond obscured by the angle of view. This creates a very special intimate city, a human scaled city, for the benefit and edification of those living or visiting here. This, in conjunction with historical character (now lost in Christchurch), a rich, intelligent, creative and industrious community is what makes Dunedin a destination, a special, memorable place that with sympathetic development will continue to attract visitors and citizens who will not find the likes, elsewhere in the world. Structures like the proposed hotel are notable for being the same the world over. In being built it will change the very character of the place visitors will be seeking to experience.

I submit in the strongest terms that the Dunedin City Council turn down this application for resource consent and I suggest that the non compliance of this application to the requirements of the Resource Management Act to protect the amenity, aesthetic and cultural values and wellbeing of the people of Dunedin will bring this matter to the Environment Court.

Yours sincerely

Madeleine Lamont
B. Landscape Architecture (Hons), Lincoln University

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Compare these indicative images to those prepared by Truescape of Christchurch for the Applicant:

LUC-2012-212 12. Viewpoint booklet (PDF, 3.4MB)
This document is a scanned copy of the application for resource consent

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Related Posts:
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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The Applicant, Betterways Advisory Limited, gets one and a half days for presentation to the hearing committee (Cr Colin Weatherall, Cr Andrew Noone, Cr Kate Wilson, and independent commissioner John Lumsden). Submitters have been allowed ten minutes each. Written communication from City Planning makes no time allowance for submitters wishing to use experts.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel

UPDATED 21.11.12

See comments at this thread:

Ro https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/dunedin-hotel-41-wharf-street-luc-2012-212/#comment-29089

Elizabeth https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/dunedin-hotel-41-wharf-street-luc-2012-212/#comment-29090

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“What Heydary found came as a shock, especially to some buyers who readily admit they were so blinded by the flash and cash of Donald Trump that they didn’t do proper due diligence: Buyers weren’t purchasing so much a condo as a share in a high-end hotel that, so far at least, is losing money.”

Trump Tower developer suing 7 disgruntled investors to close deals they now regret

Anonymous provided this edifying read. It ‘trumps’ what happened with the first tower built at Orewa, and the Spencer on Byron at Takapuna (referred to elsewhere at What if?, or google) – as far as 41 Wharf Street, Dunedin is concerned the tower-scam model is the same. So here we are, naive and wide open to the wiles of our own ‘good old boys’ and their unsavoury quest for a share of dirty-quick money from fickle overseas ‘connections’, and your life savings too.

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### ODT Online Wed, 21 Nov 2012
DCC report opposes city hotel
By Chris Morris
Plans for a 28-storey waterfront hotel towering over Dunedin have been dealt a blow by a Dunedin City Council report that criticises the design and recommends resource consent be declined. The report by council planner Lianne Darby, made public yesterday, identified the hotel’s height and dominant appearance as among areas of concern. A host of technical worries also raised doubts, ranging from traffic problems and shading to a lack of information about wind gusts magnified by the tower’s height. Ms Darby’s report left the door ajar by including a list of detailed conditions to impose if consent were granted, despite her recommendation.
Read more

Source: ODT Files

Note to graphic: Under the Resource Management Act (RMA) the commissioners to hear the application cannot consider the economic viability of the proposed hotel project – the matters with a red cross, at right, fall within the scope of the Act. The applicant is required to show the adverse effects of the proposed development are no more than minor.

Read Post Application Information at DCC website

‘New information’ about the hypothetical footbridge cannot be considered at hearing since it was NOT included in the notified application.

### ODT Online Tue, 20 Nov 2012
Hotel developer unveils link bridge proposal
By Chris Morris
The man promoting Dunedin’s proposed 28-storey hotel has unveiled plans for a “world class” pedestrian and cyclist bridge that could provide a missing link to the city’s waterfront. However, the idea is only the “starting point for a discussion”, with key details – including how much the sweeping structure would cost and who would pay for it – yet to be confirmed, Betterways Advisory Ltd director Steve Rodgers said.
Read more

Source: Ignite Architects Ltd (via ODT)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)

All submitters received a letter dated 2 November 2012 from Dunedin City Council informing them of the dates on which the Hearings Committee will consider the Betterways Advisory Ltd’s resource consent application for 41 Wharf Street, Dunedin.

The council hearings committee is Cr Colin Weatherall (chairman), Cr Andrew Noone and Cr Kate Wilson. Submissions will be heard in the Edinburgh Room, Municipal Chambers.

Hearing dates:
Monday 3 December 2012 – 9am to 5pm
Tuesday 4 December 2012 – 9am to 5pm
Wednesday 5 December 2012 – 10am to 7.30pm
Thursday 6 December 2012 – 9am to 5pm

And if required:
Monday 17 December 2012 – 9am to 5pm
Tuesday 18 December 2012 – 9am to 5pm
Wednesday 19 December 2012 – 9am to 5pm

It is anticipated the applicant will present for the first day and part of the second day. Submitters are likely to commence their presentations from 2pm on Tuesday 4 December.

Altogether, there were 508 public submissions. Not all submitters wish to be heard. That’s right, the applicant has about a day and a half to present substantively; submitters get 10 minutes each. Such is the democratic process.

The intention must be that if the Council grants consent – red carpet – then we take it to the Environment Court on appeal.

There has been no cost benefit analysis for the proposed hotel. Given the shortcomings of the site, neither the Applicant or the Dunedin City Council have declared the potential costs, including infrastructure services costs, of this project to ratepayers. There’s quite a lot the Council isn’t saying publicly; and quite a lot it’s saying, politically, behind closed doors to the applicant, we hear.

The Application: (DCC webpages)
● Current notified applications
● LUC-2012-212 (Betterways Advisory Limited) – all documents

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Published on May 13, 2012 by DunedinNZofficial

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Dunedin lawyer Steve Rodgers said he remained convinced the hotel would be a “game-changer” for Dunedin and was “98.2%” confident it would win approval at next month’s resource consent hearing.

### ODT Online Sat, 10 Nov 2012
Hotel project spokesman confident of go-ahead
By Chris Morris
The man acting as the public face for a proposed 28-storey waterfront hotel in Dunedin says the project remains “full steam ahead” despite a public outcry. However, Dunedin lawyer Steve Rodgers – the director of Betterways Advisory Ltd, the company fronting the development – would not rule out changes to the hotel’s design, but hoped a fight through the Environment Court could be avoided.
Read more

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Related Posts:
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr