A group of residents in the Wellington suburb of Newtown are fighting the construction of an apartment complex that will raise funds for Mary Potter Hospice.
Mary Potter Hospice is situated opposite the Wellington Hospital, on Mein Street in Newtown. Photo: Google Maps
The proposed five-storey, 37-unit apartment complex is designed to create long-term funding for the hospice, which has to raise over $5 million every year to run.
The hospice said it would soon apply to the Wellington City Council for resource consent for the building next to its Mein St hospice.
But the plan has been met with opposition by neighbours, who attended a public meeting on Saturday to discuss their concerns.
Almost 70 residents attended, many of them worried about the effects on the surrounding area, including increased parking demand, noise, and shading.
One neighbour, Alex Granville, said the apartments would dominate the area.
"The building is proposed to be five to six storeys high, and they just look like boxes, and it seems to us that the proposal is basically just plonking these boxes of apartments onto a small area of the hospice land, so it feels like there will be a huge domination of those apartments over the surrounding area."
She said while she supported the hospice's work, the development should not proceed.
"I'd love for it to be abandoned, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's realistic. But either way, it is a good thing is we've had this conversation, out in the open, in the public domain and we'll continue to monitor the situation."
