Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The Unitec project: Something…, in reply to Neil,
This land was an asset stripped from the mental health system. It could be an opportunity to redress that wrong by providing much needed long term supervised accommodation for those with major debilitating mental illness. With some of the original parkland for recreation and gardens.
I've seen a couple of people say this – but I think it's important to acknowledge that by the time it was sold to Carrington Polytechnic by the Auckland Area Health Board in 1993, Carrington Hospital was a disaster – it featured heavily in the second Mason report. And even before that, its roster had plummeted.
As things stand, the Mason Clinic (106 beds) will remain and there are community mental health facilities across the road. The system desperately needs more beds, but those should probably be at existing facilities.
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Hard News: The Unitec project: Something…, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
I think they have probably released all the detail there is, because it feels like it was scribbled up on Friday as an announceable for the weekend rather than being a serious proposal – again, in the best traditions of Nick Smith.
You and Glenn are both right that there appears to be no more detail to be had. There's certainly not much on the MBIE site – they've even used Unitec's subdivision map, which I presume won't be the final layout.
But the government is the sole purchaser and intends to build, and the zoning is enshrined in the Unitary Plan. There will be new housing there: a lot of it. I don't think there's a brownfield site of similar scale that could be done sooner.
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Hard News: The Unitec project: Something…, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
According to the government’s announcement, the cheap ones (which will only be 30-40% of them) will be $500,000 to $600,000 and the rest more. If it’s 4000 dwellings in total (1000 more than its zoned for), the population density will be 6x Hobsonville, but with a height limit of 27 metres. This just doesn’t add up. The announcement is total bullshit in the best traditions of Nick Smith.
Twyford was careful to emphasise the “3000 to 4000” part this morning, and I suspect the final total will be far more like the former, which is what it’s zoned for.
Which, to be fair, is 3000 more than your recent confident prediction of zero.
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Hard News: The Unitec project: Something…, in reply to Neil,
$600,000 – and probably a lot more once building is completed – doesn’t sound very affordable.
It's cheap for a townhouse or terrace in central Auckland, but I'd imagine that apartments would be cheaper.
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Hard News: The Unitec project: Something…, in reply to James Dunne,
The real question is how long before Occupy Garnet Road and She Who Must Not Be Named scent progress and descend on Unitec to ruin everything.
I checked, and not yet.
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Hard News: The Unitec project: Something…, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
6x the intensification of Hobsonville Pt?
What is proposed for Unitec is intensification on a scale unseen before in NZ. This will be nothing like Hobsonville Pt or Stonefields that people are likening it to.
It seems quite unlike those – clearly, they're going to build up. The Unitary Plan gives them the ability to build to 27 metres on parts of the site.
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Simon Bridges seriously straining credulity:
National was going to build 3000 homes in Auckland’s Mt Albert before it lost the election, but didn’t reveal the plans because it would have been seen as pork barrelling, Simon Bridges said on Monday.
Oh, come on. They didn’t announce their housing plans during a campaign in which housing was a major issue because it might have been seen as pork-barreling? And $10 billion in roads and a new hospital in Dunedin wouldn’t have been?
Good grief.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Golden Dawn is…, in reply to Bruce Wurr,
Would love to see a stuntclown reissue, particularly with the first 7 track ep as a bonus
Which is effectively what happened with the CD reissue/digital release. And damn, you're right – a double vinyl version would be awesome.
there's also the wonderful live versions of donca and do the headless chickens on the bside of expecting to fly that need to be resurfaced!
Oh yes ... and now I have to go and dig out the 12".
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Latest: CA's senior directors paid Israeli hackers to hack the email of two sitting heads of state, to the horror of their own staff.
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Wow.
Three days before he was suspended as CEO of Analytica, Alexander Nix formed a new company with Rebekah Mercer as a co-director.