Public reserve land in Pt Chev could be sold for housing

The old blue building on the corner of Raymond Street and Harbour View Road has sat empty and rotting for five years. Now the council has to decide what comes next, and one of the three options still standing is to sell the public land underneath it for housing.

The site, 13-17 Raymond Street, is a 926 square metre corner section in the middle of Pt Chevalier, and was once home to the local Lions Club. It has been vacant since 2021.

An assessment last year found the building on the property to be in very bad condition, with water damage and vandalism leading council officials to recommend its demolition.

Council papers cite health and safety risks and the ongoing cost of holding an empty building. On that much everyone agrees: under every option the council is considering, the building comes down.

Five options, three still standing

The question is what replaces it. At a July workshop, council staff put five options in front of the Albert-Eden Local Board and shortlisted three.

The cheapest and quickest is to demolish the building and simply keep the land as open space, a job of one to two years. Staff rate it low cost and low risk, but weak on strategic grounds because, on the council's own reading, Pt Chevalier has no pressing shortage the site would fill.

The second is a ground lease: clear the site and lease it to a community organisation to build and run something itself. That would cost the council little and could even bring in lease revenue, but it depends on finding a group with the funding and the governance to pull it off, and would take three to five years or more.

The third option is to demolish the building, sell the land, and put the proceeds towards a higher priority project somewhere else. Staff scored this option strongest against the council's asset optimisation goals. It is also the slowest and most fraught, at four to five years, because selling reserve land is not a simple sale.

Selling it is the hard road

To sell it, the council would first have to revoke the land's reserve status, a process that needs Department of Conservation approval and can trigger a public hearing. It would also have to rezone it from open space to residential through a plan change. The staff paper presented in the July workshop acknowledges the risk in plain terms, listing "potential community opposition" among the downsides. It also floats an alternative: shifting the site's reserve protection onto another piece of land, so this one can be freed up while the overall reserve network stays intact.

Two further options, refurbishing the building for a community lease and building a new venue for hire, were dropped as too expensive, unfunded, and answering a need staff say is not there.

Does Pt Chev actually need it?

The council's case for treating the site as surplus rests on a community profile that describes Pt Chevalier as already well served, with good open space, bookable venues nearby, and a library and community centre in the town centre, alongside an older population, low deprivation and only modest projected growth.

$800,000 on paper, more on the market

The site carries a council rating valuation of $800,000, but that figure is set for rates, not sale, and a full 926 square metre section in this part of Pt Chevalier would fetch considerably more on the open market. Demolition would be paid for separately, through what the council calls its "Delivering Differently" funding. Of the live options, open space is cheapest to deliver but earns nothing and carries ongoing maintenance. The ground lease could generate income, while a sale would hand the council a one-off lump sum, potentially well above the rating valuation, to spend elsewhere.

What happens next

Nothing is decided yet. The options went to the local board at a workshop, and staff will report back with a recommendation before the board makes a call, expected later this year. The council's own quarterly work programme signals public engagement should start happening about now.