Albany Centre

 North Shore City Council and Auckland Council (2002 - current)

 

Albany Centre is a greenfield sub-regional centre near the northern perimeter of Auckland’s urban area, that encompasses 127 hectares of land. Development started in the 1990's and Tracy (Director of Motu Design Ltd) has been involved in varying capacities since 2002, originally as an employee of North Shore City Council. Tracy was the project manager for the development of the Albany Centre Vision and Development Strategy (2004), and contributed to the drafting of the plan change that created the Business 11 Zone (North Shore City District Plan), before leaving to establish Motu Design in 2005.

 

Since 2007, Motu Design has provided urban design advice on:

•  Many large retail, commercial and mixed use / residential apartment developments as part of assessing Resource Consents. This includes a range of of built, not built and yet to be built projects. Major consents assessed include: Stage Two Westfield Mall, Progressive supermarket and main street retail development, Rose Garden’s apartments, North Harbour Stadium Swimming pool and other planned works within the QBE Stadium, multiple commercial developments on Corinthian Drive and Oteha Valley Road, and various apartments and commercial developments not yet built.   (2007 – present)
• The design of several new streets that incorporate low impact/storm water sensitive design features, including Corban Avenue, Munroe Lane extension and Kaipiho Lane.
• The assessment of the Civic Crescent upgrade and bus station
• The development of North Shore City Council’s Albany Centre Transport Strategy (ACTS) that has informed Auckland Transport’s planned work in the area (2011)
• Version 2 of the Albany Centre Streetscape and Planting Guidelines (2011)
• Liaison with Auckland Transport on the potential to change the design Don McKinnon Drive (2015)
• Response to submissions on the Albany Centre Precincts within the Auckland Unitary Plan (2016)

 

From the height of Auckland’s last property boom in 2007 to date, Albany Centre has had a varied past with substantial changes in landownership patterns that have impacted development potential and timing. The experience of witnessing the challenges of greenfield development over an extended period, provides the Motu Design team with a robust understanding of the dynamics between long term strategic planning, regulation, land ownership patterns, infrastructure provision, design and development economics.  From experience, a key requirement for success is good communication and coordinated and clear staging plans.