Old villa to make way for apartments

Consent has been granted to demolish this two-storey, 1902-03 villa in Khyber Pass, north Dunedin.

Consent documents provided by the Dunedin City Council show plans for a two-storey, eight-apartment building [below] to take its place.

The newly proposed apartments were much larger than the existing structure, the consent documents said.

The building would breach density, boundary setbacks, height in relation to boundary, and outdoor living standards for the site, they said. However, since higher density had been introduced in the area, multi-unit developments had started to "spring up".

The multi-unit apartments were clustered in areas close to the University of Otago campus and provided student accommodation.

"The current character of the neighbourhood is now a mixture of older beautiful buildings with a lot of detailing and more modern, simple buildings with very little reference to the older buildings."

The proposed building at this site would "make reference to the decorative features of the older buildings" and was also consistent with the more modern buildings in the surrounding environment, they said.