Council unveils plan to build market rental accommodation in one of Hastings' primary retail blocks
A plan for a three-storey market rental accommodation on the west side of Hastings' CBD has been unveiled by the District Council.
The preferred design option was approved by Hastings District Council at a meeting in December 2020.
It wasn't until about 18 months later when council approved the lodgement of Resource Consent, which was done in mid-August this year.
Public notification by way of an advert in Hawke's Bay Today was done on Saturday - the final day of the local body elections.
The council is seeking resource consent for the redevelopment of 206 Queen Street West – once home to the Hawke’s Bay Farmers Co-operative Association, and more recently Briscoes - and 223 Heretaunga Street West.
The redevelopment will include a new three-storey medium-density residential apartment building with private parking (18 spaces) on the ground floor of the building, a pedestrian laneway from 223 Heretaunga Street West and 14 public parking spaces along the western wall of the apartment building and adjacent to the existing service lane, as well as a pocket park.
There will also be additional space for two commercial tenancies.
Concept drawings of the apartment floor plans. Photo/Supplied.
Hastings District Council Chief Executive Nigel Bickle told Hawke's Bay App the building is designed to be market rental accommodation, "not public or social housing".
"It is straight out market inner city apartments. Still the exact detail to be worked through but the key elements of it are a joint venture with Wallace Development, who is the preferred development partner."
"It is really exciting because we are out there also consulting on Plan Change 5 to the District Plan, which is all about trying to encourage good quality medium-density housing inside our existing footprint because we need to rebalance away from building new houses on green fields land."
When asked why council decided to publicly notify residents on the day of the local body elections, Bickle said there was no political reason behind it.
"It just happened to be the way that it fell. It's just the process that resource consents take. There's nothing behind it other than we had to get it to a point that it was ready to lodge, so all the heritage reports, the environmental reports, the cultural reports - all the things that you would normally do with developing a resource consent.
"We're doing this in a fully open and transparent way on a full public notification process. There's a shop open with all the storyboards. We're trying to take this as wide as possible in terms of a full public notification process so nothing to hide."
The redevelopment has been branded as a "repurposing and reimagining" of the buildings by HDC to "breathe life" into this area.
Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said it would be another exciting step towards the vision of creating more inner-city green spaces, enhancing connections around the city, and showcasing how inner-city living can work.
“We’ve done an enormous amount of work in the eastern blocks of Hastings and this is a flagship project for the western end that will add to the street upgrades and enhancements that are underway or starting soon.
“This building has historic importance for our city, and this is proposed to be reflected in the new development that will honour that past, and enhance it for the future.
In 2019, she says they made a change to the District Plan to make it easier to build residential accommodation in the city.
A pop-up shop next to Michael Hill jewellers, where the pedestrian laneway will eventually be, is open through the weekdays until October 28 for people to find out more about the proposal.
People can make submissions up until November 7.
