Would you be happy if a 10.3m high, 51-unit apartment block was built at your back fence?
Submitters at a resource consent hearing for a 200-person retirement village in Wakari posed just that question to a committee of Dunedin city councillors yesterday.
Summerset Retirement Village Group has applied to the Dunedin City Council for consent to build a three-storey building, to include serviced apartments and care beds, an apartment block of 51 units, and 31 townhouses on Shetland St.
The Australian-owned, New Zealand-operated company bought a 1.9ha block of land for $1.4 million in 2009, and shortly afterwards received Overseas Investment Office clearance.
Council processing planner Kirstyn Lindsay recommended consent be granted, subject to conditions including construction being limited to 8am-6pm Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.
Councillors Colin Weatherall, Fliss Butcher and Kate Wilson heard from many submitters who were concerned about increased traffic, parking problems, and construction noise, along with the height of the village's buildings.
In an area where the maximum allowable height was 9m, the apex of the apartment block and main building was 10.3m, though some of this height was expected to be mitigated by digging into the site.
For Chapman St property owners Lisa Alderton and Darren Wilson, the prospect of living beside a construction site for years was of concern, let alone it ending in a three-storey apartment block at their back fence.
"Can you honestly say you would be happy to have this building on your back fence?" Ms Alderton asked the committee.
They did not directly oppose it, but "the excessive height and visual dominance ... [is] the worst possible outcome for us".
Summerset had applied for a 10-year lapsing period for construction. Its villages usually took five to six years to complete.
The couple opposed this period due to the impact living beside a construction site for so long would have on them and their children.
Jarrod Lovely also had "some concerns about the fairness of the construction process" and wanted building restricted to working hours, Monday to Friday, as opposed to the 7.30am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 4pm Saturday Summerset wanted.
His house would also be affected by the apartment block and, although he did not object to looking out at a roof, he was worried his privacy would be breached with balconies on the third floor looking into his back yard.
"I think the best mitigation is sticking to [the] 9m [height restriction]," he said.
Height was also the key concern of his neighbour, Barbara Bennett.
"That apartment block totally obscures my view on either side. I thought a `village' would be town houses - single story dwellings. I'm not objecting to the whole village, but a two-storey building would cover a lot of my concerns," she said.
However, Summerset's architectural designer David Rutter said "the apartment building as viewed from the Chapman St properties will appear to be nothing more than a single level adjacent building", due to the houses sitting above the site.
Summerset's planner Allan Cubitt said the proposal was "necessary in the context of Dunedin's ageing population" and a suitable use of the site.
He also advised that the applicant had considered the option of restricting the building height to 9m by flattening the roof line.
However, this would result in the building looking more industrial than residential, and the pitched roof was needed to hide services such as heating and ventilation systems, water tanks and head works from lift shafts.
The company also proposed building a 2.5m high fence along the Chapman St property's boundaries to screen them.
The committee will carry out a site visit today before the hearing continues.
