Last updated 18:31, May 4 2018
Chris Skelton
The house is frequently visited by police with vagrants taken away this week, Neighbourhood Watch coordinator Sandra Allen says.
The house is frequently visited by police with vagrants taken away this week, Neighbourhood Watch coordinator Sandra Allen says.
A cedar house which recently sold for $5.5 million in an affluent Auckland suburb is causing consternation among neighbours who say it's home to trespassers and has been stripped of copper.
The house at 42 Byron Ave in Takapuna has been empty since its owner died in 2014. It is now boarded up, with broken windows and graffiti.
Nerida Cath, who has lived opposite the house for 15 years, said there had been a "huge deterioration in the whole property", as well as the house next door at number 44.
"You've got two properties sitting there that are totally unattended and it's just a magnet for people."
In Takapuna there had been an increase of drug problems and burglaries, as well as an increase in homeless people, Cath said.
Although windows and doors have been boarded up, people are still managing to find their way inside the Byron Ave property.
After the homeowner's death in 2014, the vacated house at number 42 sold for $1.52 million.
In 2017, 42 and the house next door at 44 sold to Hong Da Development for $5.5 million each. Both are now empty.
Resource consents obtained from Auckland Council showed the company's director Hongyan He is working with Francis Clarke Architects to design nine terraced houses.
One neighbour is concerned the place could be "torched".
The consents, which were approved in December 2016, would see the development take place once the houses were bulldozed.
Hong Da Development Limited could not be reached for comment but Paul Francis of Francis Group Architects said Auckland Council had made them aware of the issues with trespassers.
"She [Hongyan He] has a construction company that's boarded up the windows several times. Nobody's happy about it [people trespassing]," Francis said.
Allen said she had called the police five or six times this week alone.
He said the intention was to have the place bulldozed "within a number of months".
On April 30, four police cars arrived at the Takapuna address and removed two people who were inside, according to Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator Sandra Allen.
"The other day they had hacksaws and were hacking the copper piping apart," Allen said.
42 and 44 Byron Ave, Takapuna sit abandoned. Both are owned by a Chinese developer who bought them five years ago and hasn't developed them. They have been empty but occupied by squatters, upsetting neighbours suburb and resulting in police callouts.
Allen lived a few houses up from the Byron Ave property and described police appearances as a regular scene.
Community constable Andy Young had been a "saviour" for the street, checking in on the place regularly and cutting the grass, Allen said.
Police said they were unable to confirm reports of arrests at the property due to privacy reasons.