Northcote’s already blessed with nearby beautiful beaches, green spaces and a vibrant community, just 15 minutes from the CBD off-peak. And it’s about to get even better. Over the next five years, Northcote Development will see 1,700 new architecturally designed Homestar 6 rated apartments, terraces and standalone homes built, along with new and renovated parks, a new leafy greenway for walking and cycling, and upgraded streets. Plus, construction of a brand new town centre’s planned soon. Locals already love this place – and you will too.
Our part in Northcote’s redevelopment
Universal Homes is proud to play a key role in the redevelopment of Northcote, in partnership with Kāinga Ora. Our long history of over six decades at the forefront of residential design and build development in New Zealand showcases our strong experience, reliable reputation and commitment to continuous innovation, design excellence, and future-focused building solutions. We are extremely proud of our heritage creating dozens of communities and building tens of thousands of high-quality homes since our establishment back in 1959.
We have already built a suite of quality new homes at Northcote, with this first group of spacious, thoughtfully designed and well-located terrace homes selling out in a matter of days. We are currently constructing homes across three additional sites at the Northcote development. Our stylish Northcote homes are warm, dry and energy efficient, created with quality durable materials, double glazing, smart orientation and all built with our decades of experience, so you can relax and spend your time enjoying everything the Northcote neighbourhood has to offer. The typologies of homes we offer at Northcote cater to a diverse range of layout needs, with plenty of space, light and bright interiors, privacy, and contemporary style to enjoy.
A great place to live
If you’d love to live close to beautiful beaches and parks, but want to stay close to the city, Northcote is the perfect spot. At only 15 minutes from the CBD off-peak and with good transport links in place, the suburb is seeing the benefit of government investment in infrastructure and housing and becoming more vibrant by the year.
Our new homes at Northcote bring sophisticated central living opportunities, with local boutiques and retail, plenty of dining choices, purpose-built office spaces, and quality school options at all levels in zone, including Northcote College. In the immediate vicinity North Shore Hospital, AUT University and the beautiful northern beaches make this a great suburb to live in. Excellent public transport is available on the Northern Busway, and Northern Motorway access close by means you’re en route in no time. Northcote’s new greenway, Te Ara Awataha, will connect the community via a network of parks, shared cycling routes, and walking paths. A significant investment in local parks, walkways and the town centre over the next few years is set to make Northcote buzz with life.
Northcote Development: the Vision
The overall vision for Northcote’s Development, led by Kāinga Ora, is to increase the amount of new, high-quality housing and to support and strengthen the community as it grows. The Northcote Development is part of a large-scale initiative called The Auckland Housing Programme, tasked to deliver more quality, well-priced homes. Significant investment is being poured into the area to build on its strengths and prepare it for growth, including replacing old homes with warm, modern, low-maintenance dwellings, upgrading streets, infrastructure, walkways, parks, and the town centre – so you can be confident you’re buying a home in a community you’ll love to live in for years to come.
The Northcote Development area is well-suited to quality housing intensification and a focus on future-proofing: it is very well located, close to the CBD and other key work hubs such as Takapuna and the Wairau Valley, and has good transport links. The Northcote Development will help this much-loved neighbourhood grow well into the future, and improve the quality of not just housing, but other buildings and public facilities.
Northcote is ethnically diverse with European, Māori, Pasifika and Asian New Zealanders resident. The Northcote Development has its inhabitants at its heart: a place encouraged to thrive through the current redevelopment as a liveable community that celebrates its locale, its diversity, and its identity. Northcote is being developed to respond to its surrounding context, as well as taking advantage of the intrinsic and unique qualities of its site. The area’s ‘renovation’ will bring public spaces and facilities up to date for the community to better enjoy. It’s an area well served by community facilities already, and the Development’s significant investment in local parks, walkways and the town centre over the coming decade is set to make it even better.
Over the next few years, the Northcote Development will replace around 300 state houses built in the 1950s and 1960s with 1,700 warm, healthy homes designed for modern living, with a focus on affordability. Universal’s new architecturally designed Homestar 6 rated apartments, terraces, duplexes and standalone homes will feature here, and will sit alongside three new parks plus four freshly renovated existing parks, a brand new leafy greenway for walking and cycling around Northcote, and upgraded surrounding streets. The Northcote Development includes the redevelopment of local schools, parks, and the busy and popular town centre with work underway in the next few years by Eke Panuku; all interconnected by the award-winning Te Ara Awataha Greenway.
Urban regeneration at Northcote
The urban regeneration project at the Northcote Development has been underway since 2016. Many of the streets, parks and essential services (including stormwater and wastewater systems) in this area were built more than 50 years ago and need renewing. Building housing at scale at the Northcote Development in partnership with Kāinga Ora gives the chance to ‘renovate’ the area we are working in together, and bring public spaces and facilities up to date to a higher quality, so that they are safer and more durable, and can better meet the needs of the local communities both now and into the future. This brings a sense of belonging for all.
While new housing is built, the opportunity to enhance the community’s enjoyment of Northcote by upgrading local amenities is being undertaken by a range of organisations, including Kāinga Ora which is managing the development of the new housing and the new and upgraded neighbourhood amenities. They are the masterplanners for the Northcote development and are also responsible for working with the community and gathering their input for Northcote. Piritahi was formed to help Kāinga Ora do the groundworks part of the project. They are removing state houses from the development land, building roads and parks and replacing old infrastructure. Eke Panuku Development Auckland is part of Auckland Council, and is looking after the reinvigoration of the town centre. Kāinga Ora, Eke Panuku, Auckland Council, Auckland Transport and many other organisations including Universal Homes plus the local community are all working together to develop Northcote, building on its existing character and strength.
Greenspaces for Northcote
The Development’s Vision for Northcote is to increase the urban density of the community while ensuring it’s a great place to live and work. This means that part of this Vision is for the area to become greener and more walkable, with more green spaces and parks to enjoy, to enhance and support local outdoor amenities for the occupiers of the new homes in the area. A huge amount of valuable infrastructure is well underway, including community spaces, off-street parking and landscaping alongside significant upgrades to stormwater management, reserve upgrades, and new parks. It’s going to provide a real benefit for Northcote.
Local parks in the immediate vicinity will include Cadness Loop Reserve, Richardson Park, Lindisfarre Reserve, Greenslade Reserve, Lenihan Reserve, Stancich Reserve, and more. Richardson Park has already opened, on a once vacant lot. Greenslade Reserve and Te Ara Awataha, Northcote’s greenway, are both currently under construction. When completed, the Cadness Loop Reserve will form the southern border of the Northcote Development. At around 3,000sqm in size, it will provide green space for ball sports, playground equipment, and space to socialise and relax. This reserve will also link with Te Ara Awataha Greenway.
Te Ara Awataha Greenway: a green network
Northcote’s new award-winning Te Ara Awataha Greenway is a key piece of amenity that the community has been closely involved in creating for the past decade. A greenway is a green ‘corridor’ designed to make it easy and pleasant for people to move around part of a neighbourhood or city. Northcote’s network of existing and new reserves will connect the community to local destinations with plenty of areas for recreation and conservation. Te Ara Awataha will provide a green walking path to Northcote Town Centre, connecting a number of pocket parks, green spaces and reserves within the development area to the neighbourhood streets and the shops via a pedestrian path and cycleway. It will create a green and pleasant way to get from the neighbouring streets to the shops on foot or by bike. It will also provide links between the town centre, schools and public transport.
Weaving along the path of the old Awataha Stream, Te Ara Awataha Greenway reminds us of the history of the local area. The name Te Ara Awataha means ‘the path of the Awataha’, and refers to the historic Awataha Stream that ran through the area before being buried underground. The Awataha Stream will be brought to light for long distances of the greenway. This regenerative process, known as ‘daylighting’, will boost the mauri (life essence) of the stream, improving water quality and allowing it to become a habitat for birds, insects and tuna (eels) once more. Te Ara Awataha is being jointly delivered by Eke Panuku Development Auckland, Auckland Council Healthy Waters and Kāinga Ora, working alongside the Kaipātiki Local Board, mana whenua, and other stakeholders in Northcote.
Children will be able to walk and cycle safely to school and the community will have a green space on their doorstep to connect with nature. Students from local schools Onepoto Primary School, Northcote Intermediate School and Northcote College are involved in the Te Ara Awataha Greenway Project, contributing their ideas and feedback in regular project workshops. These workshops have captured the students’ vision for how the parts of the greenway that border with local schools should look and function. As a result, this portion of the greenway will become an outdoor classroom as well as a place for the wider community.
Native planting, wayfinding signs, and designs on balustrades and pavements will help tell stories about Northcote’s natural landscape along the greenway. Mana whenua artists Janine Williams and Reuben Kirkwood are bringing matauranga Māori to life through artworks – etched basalt touchstones alongside the Awataha Stream and a series of kaiārahi (guides) carvings to act as markers for people as they explore the pathway.
Town centre regeneration
One of Northcote’s key community facilities is the town centre: the natural heart of the local area, with a range of shops and vibrant eateries that reflect the cultural diversity of the area, along with a library, community centre, early learning centre and art gallery. Situated on Northcote’s main road, Lake Road, opposite Greenslade Reserve, the shopping centre was ultra-modern when the ribbon was cut in 1959 and the first mall-style shopping centre to be built in Auckland. Northcote’s town centre is home to a plethora of places to eat catering to a broad range of cuisines, and will be completely renewed in a large-scale project being managed by Eke Panuku Development Auckland. The town centre will be redeveloped in stages so that it can continue to provide for the community throughout this period.
The Northcote Town Centre Benchmark Masterplan shows how the renewed town centre will offer all the things that locals want and need, including eateries, shops, and public spaces, while retaining a distinctly Northcote flavour. The redeveloped Northcote town centre will comprise a network of walkable streets and lanes, framed by shops, offices and homes. New shops, eateries, apartments, revamped multi-purpose community buildings including a town square, a library, a supermarket, public parking, and a town square will all be part of the refresh. Public spaces will be provided for informal gathering, outdoor dining, markets, and larger festivals.
Above image: artist’s impression of Northcote’s future town square, courtesy of Eke Panuku Development Auckland. Render shown is concept only and may be subject to change.
Find your place to call home
In collaboration with Universal Homes, Construkt Architects, recognised as a leading light in designing and developing quality, affordable homes, is bringing their expertise to the new homes we are building at Northcote. “The project that we have partnered with Universal on at Northcote is part of a much larger masterplan that encompasses the regeneration of the whole suburb, including the renewal of the town centre, developed by Eke Panuku in collaboration with Kāinga Ora, Auckland Council, Kaipātiki Local Board, mana whenua, and local community groups,” says Russell Cannons, Principal and Director at Construkt Architects.
The Northcote Development sees a total of around 1,700 new homes on the way for all types of households, in a range of sizes and typologies, from apartments through to various styles of terraced homes. Universal Homes is building a portion of these. Various typologies ensure different needs are covered for all households when it comes to home size, layout, budget, and number of bedrooms. These new homes are warm, dry, healthy, and designed for straightforward modern living.
Universal’s apartments provide low maintenance, secure living. Research has shown that smaller, low-rise apartment buildings like the ones being designed for Northcote can facilitate a sense of community. Universal’s terraced homes are joined with their neighbour on both sides to form a row. They are popular because they use land efficiently and are more affordable than standalone homes, yet each has private outdoor spaces.
Homestar 6 rated homes
We’ve released a selection of architecturally designed, Homestar 6 rated new homes at Northcote. With significant investment over the coming decade including new and renovated parks, a new leafy greenway for walking and cycling, upgraded streets and even a refreshed town centre, your Homestar 6 rated, beautifully designed, light-filled Universal home will situate you in in the centre of this wonderful neighbourhood where you can live, work, and relax close to excellent schools, cafes and stunning beaches.
A Northcote home that’s right for you
If Northcote feels like somewhere you’d like to call home, we’re excited to help you start your new home journey. Srecko and Ling, our friendly Sales Consultants, can take you through the process step-by-step. You’ll be surprised just how easy it can be with our fixed-cost homes, flexible deposit options and no progress payments during the build.
