Life, a church headquartered in Mt Eden Auckland was facing considerable expansion and wished to increase the capacity of it’s church buildings. When the church met with Auckland Council to discuss the project they discovered that the church land would be within the designation for the Central Rail Loop project and the land would be acquired by Auckland Transport.
During the negotiations with Auckland Transport over the acquisition of their site the church had investigated numerous alternate properties without success. The church engaged us to assist in the evaluation of alternative sites and to assist them in determining what access and parking facilities would be required in any new facility.
We undertook an extensive data collection and survey programme to provide an accurate assessment of the current church operations and what would be required at a new site. We presented evidence to the land acquisition mediation sessions.
Following the acquisition of a new site we were engaged to assist with the design and evaluation of numerous alternate development concepts to meet the needs of the church while minimising both cost and build time given the impending need to vacate the existing site.
We undertook traffic surveying and modelling to determine the potential impacts of the proposal on the surrounding network.
A considerable challenge for this project was the determination of the appropriate level of parking to be provided. Without adequate parking available the church would find it difficult to maintain and grow their congregation, but the provision of parking is expensive to build with an additional opportunity cost. Complicating matters the policy direction was strongly towards limiting the availability of parking to encourage use of public transport to assist in managing peak-period commuter traffic.
After consent was obtained we assisted with preparing a Travel Plan and a Resolution for traffic controls.
