The Business Association has been actively facilitating a vision for the vacant land around the old Mount Eden railway station into the new Maungawhau CRL station. Through activities like this magazine, events like the Uptown Futures Festival, and engaging with Auckland Council and its Council Controlled Organisations, the Business Association has championed innovative and bold use of the land. Our priority is that the development doesn’t miss the opportunity to build upon the existing neighbourhood, embracing its heritage, diversity and creativity.

There has been excellent ongoing community engagement on the state of the station construction, but much less, if anything has been heard on the development use. The places and spaces that will surround it are crucial to our community.

This much we know: the station will be completed late next year, in time for the CRL to begin operating in 2026. The 3.2 hectares of land around it, jointly owned by Auckland Council and the Government, has been divided into seven parcels that will be put out to commercial development after the station is finished.

The basic elements of the precinct plan were published by Eke Panuku, the council’s development agency, in December 2022. The plan calls for an “exemplar net zero carbon urban regeneration development” that includes hundreds of new homes along with a “true mixed use” strategy intended to “build communities of residents, workers and visitors”. There is a major emphasis on walkability and access to cycling and public transport links.

But there are still many unanswered questions about what happens when, and plans for the wider Uptown neighbourhood. In part that’s inevitable: most of the land is scoped for commercial development that has yet to be put out to the market. Some is subject to first right of refusal for mana whenua. Kainga Ora’s plans for a part of the site that could hold 50 dwellings are still subject to the Government’s review of its housing agency. You’ll see what it looks like in 10 years’ time, but in five, the shovels may only just be going into the ground.

“For most of our bigger developments. you’ve got about a three-to four-year development window between when you see an advertisement go out to say the site’s available for market to when you might see a digger on site,” says Eke Panuku’s location director Kate Cumberpatch. “Within that three to four years, you’ve got development agreement negotiations, which will take a chunk of that time. Then with the preferred party, they need to do their designs, they need to get their consent, they need to ramp up and get ready for construction.”

It’s not yet clear what will happen while that process rolls out.

“That’s one of the things we’ve been talking to Eke Panuku about,” says Julie Fairey, the Auckland councillor for Albert-Eden. “The kind of conditions they’re going to put on the building consents, effectively. When people have an issue, who do they call and how is it dealt with? All that kind of stuff that’s potentially going to be more difficult if there’s multiple development partners and different sites. So there may be a role for council in terms of providing a bit of coordination there.”

“We are still working through exactly what that plan looks like,” says Cumberpatch. “That will need to be in collaboration with Auckland Transport and also with City Rail Link Limited on how they close out the sites when they’re ready and done. For walkability and accessibility, there are a few key routes within the precinct, so not every single avenue around that precinct needs to be of priority for activation, or for people to comfortably walk around.

“We are expecting there might be a few vacant sites within there. We’re starting to look at what sort of temporary activities could be done. Would it be nice to grass the area for a while and let people have some open space and a bit of a breather from all the construction?"

One area that will definitely be a park - albeit pocket-sized and quite steeply sloping - is the one running down from the bottom of Flower Street over the tunnel portal to the new Karanga-a-hape station. You can already get an idea of what future shared spaces could look like in Fenton Street to the west of the station, which is on one side of a newly-constructed walk-and-cycle overbridge. (The wider problem of how to handle the transition from a light-industrial area to a zone for people is highlighted by the continuing presence of an established tow truck business there.)