17 Nov 2015

Housing protesters target Fletcher meeting

3:51 pm on 17 November 2015

Shareholders in one of New Zealand's biggest building companies are being targeted by protesters at the company's general meeting.

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Photo: RNZ / Alex Ashton

Fletcher Residential is proposing to build up to 480 houses next to the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve in Mangere, in a Special Housing Area.

About a dozen people who oppose the development are protesting outside the Sky City hotel.

Organiser Pania Newton said the land had ancestral value and needed to be protected as an historic place.

"There is a very passionate group in Auckland that is passionate about saving this space and we feel that we should be heard, and we want them to know how significant this space is."

Those opposed to the project had invited Fletcher to their meetings but no one from the company had come, Ms Newton said.

But Fletcher chief executive Mark Adamson said the company had made a lot of concessions and he was adamant it was working with the local community.

"We have done land swaps, we have changed the shape of the developments, we've looked to build in different areas of the sites that we've purchased and put playing fields and open spaces on some of the others," he said.

"So absolutely we will always look to accommodate the local community but at the end of the day we have to get a return for our investors on the land."

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