BBO obtained approvals under the Special Housing Area legislation for the redevelopment and subdivision of the Jebson Place site to accommodate a mixture of 80 private and public dwellings for Tainui Development Ltd and Kainga Ora.
The challenge
In late 2016 Hamilton City Council and the government signed a Housing Accord as a way to increase housing supply, improve housing affordability in Hamilton, and meet its statutory requirements under the National Policy Statement on Urban Development Capacity. This agreement resulted in a new legislative framework and BBO prepared the applications for the site to be scheduled as a Special Housing Area.
The site contained vacant state housing units that had become subject to vandalism and squatting. BBO’s key consenting challenge was to integrate the development into the surrounding traditional low-density environment to achieve a sympathetic look and feel and to realise maximise density and provide a variety of housing typologies with a mix of public and private housing, to meet the objectives of both clients.
The existing road layout did not suit a higher density development, leading to a need to work with Hamilton City Council to close one of the streets and create a new road layout. Removal of old dwellings resulted in unsuitable soil being identified. BBO adopted an innovative approach to maximise the utilisation of the clean soil on-site, and in the process, reduced the disposal of unsuitable soil and associated costs.
The outcome
From the outset, the proposed density of the development did not fully align with Council’s expectations, particularly as the site was subject to a Special Character overlay. BBO and the project architects overcame this through a comprehensive design process and the utilisation of the new legislative framework that enabled sound design outcomes to take precedence over Council’s District Plan provisions. The consent was secured on a non-notified basis.
BBO subsequently secured the necessary resource consent approvals for the site and an outcome that saw an increase in density from 58 dwellings, to 80. BBO also provided engineering design, contract monitoring and surveying inputs.
