Harbourview History

Harbour View is on the Te Atatu Peninsula in Waitakere City, 8 kilometres west of Auckland's central city. The Te Atatu Peninsula stretches into the Waitemata Harbour and is surrounded by coastal wetlands and mudflats.

 

 

Waitakere City Council owned land on the underdeveloped Te Atatu Peninsula that had formerly been used as a theme park and as pastureland. The site adjoins Te Atatu Town Centre and a number of conventional suburban developments that make up the Te Atatu community.

 

 

The Council created Waitakere Properties Ltd to carry out strategic development that the private market was not prepared to do at the time. Its mandate for this site was to create a sustainable community including adoption of urban design principles.

 

 

Harbour View was developed as a demonstration project to guide and encourage private development in the region. At the time Harbour View was developed, this development concept was risky but Harbour View has subsequently proven to be highly successful.

 

 

Waitakere City Council's Strategic Development Department acted as the key stakeholder with Waitakere Properties Ltd. In the mid-1990s, the Strategic Development Department invited prominent new urbanism designers from Australia to provide urban design advice to the Council. The Council emphasised the importance of achieving adaptability and connectivity in the urban form and were looking for new opportunities to implement the eco-city framework outlined in its Greenprint strategy.

 

 

In 1994 the Council hired an architect and urban designer to redesign Harbour View. Waitakere Properties Ltd and Hopper Developments Ltd then developed Harbour View as joint venture partners.

 

 

From the beginning, the design team embraced the principles of sustainable development. The joint venture partners and Council sought to balance the need for an economically viable development with the design principles.

 

Waitakere City Council used a variety of techniques including district plan controls, design guidelines, pre-consent negotiations and demonstration projects to help reconcile these goals.

 

 

Waitakere Properties Ltd undertook extensive consultation with the Te Atatu community, as well as stakeholders within Council such as the Strategic Development team, Parks and Recreation Department, and EcoWater.

In the initial stage of development and design, the design team boldly decided to establish high quality parks before they developed the surrounding environment. Landscape development and artwork was budgeted at $50,000 per lot and $600,000 for the public green spaces, proportionally a very large amount for a development.

 

 

All section owners are required to comply with design covenants that are aimed at maintaining consistency in the area's colour scheme and guiding any future additions to properties. A Homeowner's Association is intended to ensure standards are upheld in the future.

 

 

The development assumed that changes will occur in lifestyles and demographics, and was designed to provide flexibility.

 

 

In line with the principles of sustainable development, the following principles are integral to the design of Harbour View:

Waitakere City Council's lead in developing Harbour View meant the project was driven by a clear set of ideals that created a profitable, attractive and distinctive place.

 

 

The project invested heavily in creating the landscape setting, including planting mature trees and establishing reserves in the early stages of the development, which immediately attracted people and helped develop a sense of community from the beginning.

 

 

It proved difficult to require people to carry out sustainable principles through all aspects of construction due to significant differences in cost and a lack of knowledge. At the time, the market was not prepared to absorb the cost of sustainable approaches.

 

 

Design covenants might have been more effective if they had been more stringent and comprehensive and included elements such as building materials.

 

 

Harbour View is "an experimental 'new urbanist' subdivision in Te Atatu [and] ... the first of its kind in New Zealand," notes Stephen Knight, an Auckland environmental journalist.

 

 

Harbour View has a philosophy "for ensuring quality through good design and a recognition that people make communities," writes Rachel Hargreaves from BRANZ.

 

 

Bob Harvey, Mayor of Waitakere City Council, states that developments like Harbour View are "the face of the future".

 

Forest and Bird celebrates the wetland conservation area, which acts as a "sanctuary for some of the less common wetland species lost from other areas".