Lobby group fears Auckland CBD will lose 2,000 car parks

Auckland Council’s decision to sell a downtown car parking building will kill retail businesses and hollow out the CBD, the secretary of a lobby group says.

The Save Queen Street Society is taking Auckland Council to the High Court over its decision to sell the Downtown Car Park building to developer Precinct Properties.

The group opposing the Auckland development alleges the council failed follow proper process or consider other options.

Almost 2000 car parks are expected to disappear from the CBD.

Property developer and secretary of the group Andrew Krukziener believed businesses and the city character would both be victims of the decision.

“I think it will cause a significant reduction in traffic to the city and people coming and it will cause damage to businesses, damage to office tenants, damage to retailers, to shop owners,” he said.

Krukziener told Checkpoint the development would make it very difficult for people to access Waiheke Island and other islands in the Hauraki Gulf.

“The downtown car parks are a major connector for people that use the Gulf Islands, for people who go to the viaduct, lower part of Queen Street and the lower part of Auckland.”

He said at its peak, 1,200 people a day used the car park.

“I think it’ll kill business dramatically and certainly that’s what all the businesses think.”

He told Checkpoint 150 retailers had signed the petition to stop the demolition along with more than 9,500 people.

“The people have spoken, unfortunately the council just doesn’t listen and that’s endemic in all their behaviour over the last number of years,” he said.

Krukziener said Auckland was a driving city and about 85 percent of people who came into the city came in with a vehicle.

“If there’s buses convenient to where you live, if on a bus you can go into the city and then take a bus to go and pick up your children from school and take another bus to take them to the cricket and take another bus to go pick up your daughter from the ballet and take another bus to pick up your mother from her home to take her shopping, but that’s not realistic,” he said.

He said he personally favoured cycling in the city, however, said it was impractical when it was raining and Ubers would not pick people up from Queen Street because of the poor accessibility.

“It’s successive mad policies that have made the practical use of the city very difficult for people and taking away the downtown car park’s just another nail in that coffin,” he said.

Krukziener said he had an alternative proposal, involving leaving the car park in its current place and building towers on top of it.

“Precinct’s proposal is to build 700 car parks under the ground, digging up four storeys deep into reclaimed land, along with contamination, 20,000 trucks driving back and forth through the city, taking things to landfill over a five year period of massive environmental disaster in reality.

“It’s just unnecessary when you can build on top. Why would you build 740 car parks under the ground when you’ve got 2000 already above the ground? You can build those very same towers on top of those, that existing building.”

He said the proposal to demolishing the building, digging a hole in the ground and building a car park again was unnecessary and building on top was more profitable.

“They’ve sold that building for a net $47 million for 2,000 car parks, about $25,000 of car parks. Those car parks are worth between $100 and $200,000 each. My alternative proposal delivers $350m into council’s hands, not $47m,” he said.

“If you are reusing that car park, you’re not wasting it at all, you’re building on top of it.

“I actually I’m very happy for Precinct to do the project but I don’t want them to destroy the car parking for the rest of the city,” Krukziener said.

Meanwhile, RNZ’s Marika Khabazi asked people how often they travelled to Auckland’s CBD and whether it was easy to get a car park.

One said parking in the CBD was very expensive, while another said they preferred to use public transport or an Uber to get into the city, while another said most of the people he knew were able to find parking in the city.

Checkpoint put some of the concerns outlined by the Save our Queen Street society to Auckland Council.

In a statement, Auckland Council replied: “Under the development agreement, transfer of the title to the property and demolition and closure of the Downtown Car Park cannot occur before 30 April 2025.

“In the meantime, the parties have been undertaking various tasks to progress a development of this nature such as advancing the design,” the statement said.

“The court has made no orders preventing Auckland Council or Eke Panuku from continuing with its work and decision making.”