My Account
The latest project for local developer Rick Martin is to establish a site for long-term mobile home and caravan accommodation for retirees in industrial Silverdale.
Rick Martin, whose former developments include the Nautilus apartments in Orewa, is the sole director of Charger Group, which applied for resource consent for the retirement park project at 8, 10 and 12 Blue Gum Avenue in May.
Mr Martin says he is in the process of buying the three adjoining sites, with two of the deals still to be finalised.
The idea is to demolish the buildings currently on the sites, to create 37 spaces with access to power and water where self-contained, transportable homes or caravans can be located. There will also be space for a ‘manager’s unit’ at the front of the site.
In the application, the proposal is described as an innovative way of providing housing for retirees who cannot afford to live in a retirement village.
It says that the park will be professionally run and include a governance committee, onsite manager and rules that include standards for the mobile homes.
No WINZ beneficiaries will be allowed and all residents, who must be aged 50 plus, will be credit and background checked before they can bring their mobile homes onsite to take up residence.
“This … will avoid the majority of issues surrounding drinking and antisocial behaviour,” the application says.
The retirement park proposal is further described as an efficient use of the site, which is currently uneconomic to develop for large scale commercial or apartment use.
A related application came before the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board at its meeting last month, in which the engineer working on the proposed development, Tae Yong Jang, applied for approval to thrust a stormwater pipe through the unnamed reserve adjacent to the sites, discharging into the Weiti River.
In presenting the application, Council’s land use advisor Joseph Bywater said that if the local board did not give its approval for the proposed stormwater solution, the entire development would not be able to proceed.
Local board members said they have several concerns about the application and the development proposal itself.
However, they approved the installation of the stormwater pipe in the reserve at their meeting on July 8, subject to the development obtaining resource consent.
The decision noted that this approval “neither suggests nor implies support for the current resource consent applications”.
Members said they would like the opportunity to provide feedback on the retirement park resource consent application and hope that it will be publicly notified. The applicant has requested no notification but that decision rests with Council planners.
Currently the application is on hold awaiting further information relating to earthworks and an appropriate assessment against the relevant planning documents. Further consents are also required regarding the proposed stormwater discharge.
