4 | DEVELOPMENT Classic Developments “We need a collaborative approach from council and government, an acceptance that we have a major housing shortage and infrastructure issues and a will to resolve these things.” Tauriko West is one of the large-scale urban developments proposed to support the region’s growth. Founder and director of Classic Group, Peter Cooney, is standing next to some empty land on the outskirts of Tauranga. Called Tauriko West the area should be full of thousands of houses by now but years later it’s still a brown fields site with no firm date for development to start. Meanwhile the region’s problem with housing continues to grow. Peter says it’s symptomatic of the broken housing market and Classic Group is at the coalface. Peter says its construction arm makes the Group the second largest construction company in New Zealand. Classic Group purchased the land four years ago and slow process has meant that any progress has been made at a snail’s pace. 09 524 7029 auckland@ckl.co.nz ckl.co.nz Frustrations at ongoing project delays Karen Phelps Classic Group is still managing to deliver 500-600 sections to the market each year all around New Zealand but that number could be more. The Group has a landbank of 3000 sections but it can’t release them any quicker at the moment due to lack of funding for infrastructure and red tape that causes unreasonable delay. Tauriko West is one of the large-scale urban developments proposed to support the region’s growth, providing housing and a new community to service Tauranga and the western Bay of Plenty. But the estimated 3000 – 4000 new homes will not begin until 2024/25. The Council’s website states that much of the progress on the Tauriko for Tomorrow project has not been visible to the public over the past two years but work has continued in the background and cites preliminary processes such as a change to the urban limits line (Bay of Plenty Regional Council) and local government boundary alteration (Western Bay of Plenty District Council) being completed while investigations such as geotechnical, stormwater and environmental assessments for the new community continue. For Peter it’s all too slow: “We need a collaborative approach from council and government, an acceptance that we have a major housing shortage and infrastructure issues and a will to resolve these things. “The pace everything happens at is far too slow. In the commercial world this would all happen much faster,” he says. Peter says too many different parties are involved without anyone coordinating the overall process. For example, the Tauriko for Tomorrow project is a collaboration between SmartGrowth partners Western Bay of Plenty District Council, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Tauranga City Council and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. to page 6
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