Locals to fight developer they believe wants to build suburb on a golf course

Residents of Gulf Harbour on the Whangaparāoa peninsula have vowed to fight a developer they believe has taken over their local golf course with the intention of redeveloping it into a suburb’s worth of houses.

At a packed-out meeting on Thursday, residents were told they would have to raise funds to the tune of $200,000 to pay for planners and a Kings Counsel to fight developer Gregory Olliver in court.

Olliver purchased the Gulf Harbour Country Club in 2021 – immediately ringing alarm bells for locals and prompting the formation of the Keep Whangaparāoa Green Space society (KWGS).

Rumours have circulated among club members that from day one Olliver had prepared a plan to split the golf course into three parcels and immediately sell.

When Stuff contacted Olliver’s company, Long River Investments, to seek clarification of those rumours, the answer was simply “no comment”.

Director Wayne Bailey said that “an update was due” and a statement would soon be released.

“We are aware that there is interest,” Bailey said.

Interest indeed. Frenzied fears of potential intensification saw a petition from residents to Auckland Council gain more than 4000 signatures within weeks.

The residents’ society has been lobbying the council to ensure it upholds an encumbrance of the land that prevents it from being used as anything other than open space, sport or recreation for a thousand years.

No application has actually been made to change that encumbrance, but residents lie in wait.

“I’d love nothing more than to sit down with the chief executive of Auckland Council, but unfortunately it is likely we will have to let the planning process take place,” society secretary Owen Paterson said.

Paterson told residents that it was estimated that news of the course’s demise had already resulted in a 10% loss of property value in the area – totalling half a billion dollars.

“We are confident we can win the battle to stop potentially 3000 houses on the golf course, but we need your help.”

Auckland councillor John Watson told the crowd the area had traditionally been zoned single lot, but there had been a “quid pro quo deal” to get mixed and terraced housing around the nearby canal by having the golf course as open space.

Watson listed several developments, some that had been successfully stopped by residents, and others that had gone ahead.

“If the community is organised, resourced and well advised, they can beat these people.”

Shortly after developer Greg Olliver purchased the country club, he was banned from being a company director for four years by the Registrar of Companies over an $836,000 earthworks bill that went unpaid.

The work was for a collection of properties in St Heliers that were at the centre of an epic dispute between Olliver and his ex-wife, PR pro Sarah Sparks, that has raged in the courts and media for a decade.

He narrowly escaped bankruptcy in 2009, owing creditors $92 million, by promising to pay them half his annual wages.

Meanwhile, the country club’s former director of golf, Fraser Bond, told Stuff he didn’t believe Olliver’s company had given running the golf course profitably a proper go.

“I wouldn’t say he’s intentionally run the club into the ground, because that could have been done for significantly less money… redeveloping the land was potentially a fallback.”

Two years ago the club had about 900 members, but that had fallen to around 450, Bond said. The number of tournaments had also dropped drastically from about four a month to two in eight months.

It isn’t known how much Olliver purchased the country club for, but Bond said previous owners had received an offer of $24 million, and he believes the price would have been in that ballpark.

If the 92ha course was redeveloped into housing lots, it could prove to be a substantially profitable investment.

In July, members received a letter saying that the course was not financially viable despite two years of efforts to make it profitable.

“It is appreciated that many of you have absorbed higher fees in recent times, however notwithstanding this, costs continue to outrun revenue… thus we have no option but to cease operations,” the letter said.

Membership fees had increased from $2000 a year to $3000 a year.

The letter states that the course is “generous in land” and the “most likely route to success” would have been to sell off surplus land to reinvest in the club.

“The nature of the course layout meant that this was only possible with the acquisition of neighbouring land as well. Negotiations to date have meant this is not only unviable, but ultimately a worse outcome than the status quo.”

At the meeting of the residents’ society in August, it resolved to form a committee and raise funds to stop the land from being anything other than a golf course.

“It needs an owner with a strategy to run it as part of a high-end network of golf courses,” secretary Owen Patterson said.

A member of the crowd stood up and asked if the community fought to save the course, whether he would be able to make use of the green space as a non-golfer.

“As someone coming from a lower income bracket, who could never afford a membership at the country club, is there any provision for people to make use of that green space, or is it purely the domain of the club?”

The answer was firm: “No, it’s private land, and if you’re not a member of the club, you’re trespassed.”