Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Post-EQ Sky's The Limit!

Christchurch's tallest post-quake apartment complex is about to take shape.
The $40-million-plus West Kilmore Precinct - 11 storeys tall - will rise from a site on the corner of Kilmore St and Cranmer Square, where Ernst and Young House stood before the earthquakes.
Christchurch property developer Grant MacKinnon is behind the project, along with an unnamed local investor living offshore.
Now, here's the thing: building height restrictions in the area were lowered to 11m in the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, but McKinnon will use existing use rights to build more than twice as high!
I would have thought that in these enlightened post-EQ times, the height restrictions would have been "one limit fits all - no exceptions". I'd also have expected those same height restrictions to have been applied from date-of-EQ, annulling all pre-EQ deals or permits!
Curious...
What's also curious is that MacKinnon himself has described the high-end apartment market in the central city as "difficult". Yet he's quite happily building 15 apartments priced at $450K-$950K; 35 apartments from $500K-$1.2 million...and, as if they aren't expensive enough, there'll also be some "higher end" apartments at whatever price someone-with-money-to-burn is prepared to pay!
Obviously, money talks...and right now it's probably yelling at me to shut the f*** UP!

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