2019 – The year in review
2019 has been another strong year for CKL, with a diverse range of projects and clients keeping us busy and challenged. It is always interesting to see how our team members approach problem solving on complex land development projects, and I am always proud of the innovative solutions and collaborative manner through which the issues are overcome.
This year has been no different with a number of projects requiring complex engineering design solutions and close collaboration with council authorities. We have also harnessed the latest 3D-scanning and image modelling technology for a number of clients with difficult to access and hazardous sites, and delivered outstandingly detailed 3D models of their sites. This exciting technology is changing the way we work!
The past 12 months can be defined by continued growth – both of the business itself in terms of clients and projects, as well as the new team members who have started with us. Our biggest news for 2019 was of course our decision to open an office in Tauranga to meet the increasing client demand for our services in the Bay of Plenty region. We have been considering a move into the Bay of Plenty for some time as we have a number of clients in the area, and with the appointment of Alan Wilkinson and Mark Batchelor, the time was right. We are excited about this latest milestone and look forward to continuing to grow our presence in the Bay of Plenty.
From a people perspective, we are committed to ensuring our young, up-and-coming planners, surveyors, and engineers are provided with opportunities for growth and professional development through mentoring and support. Over the past year, we have supported a number of team members on their journey to becoming Licensed Cadastral Surveyors and are proud of each of their progress and achievements.
Our transportation engineering team has also had a busy year. Judith Makinson expanded the team with transportation engineers in both our Auckland and Hamilton offices, and they have been busy working on a range of projects and initiatives across New Zealand. Judith’s expertise and leadership in this specialised field of engineering has also been recognised with her appointment as an Independent Hearings Commissioner. Judith was part of a panel of Commissioners who provided recommendation on the proposed route to replace the SH3 Manawatū Gorge Road.
As we fast approach 2020, we want to thank all our clients, partners, and suppliers for the opportunity to work together this year. We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
Geoff
|
|
Christmas closedown
CKL offices will be closed from 12 noon on Tuesday 24 December 2019, and reopen on Monday 13 January 2020.
We wish you all a holiday season filled with love, joy, and laughter.
See you in 2020 for another exciting year.
The team at CKL
|
|
CKL establish Tauranga office to meet increasing need for land development expertise
Building on our heritage of serving the people of the Waikato region for over 30 years, we are expanding our current land development and engineering offering and opening a dedicated office in Tauranga.
CKL has been providing planning, surveying, engineering and environmental services to clients in the Bay of Plenty Region from our Hamilton, Te Awamutu, and Auckland offices for some time now.
With an increase in the number of our clients based in Tauranga and the surrounding districts, and the projected growth of the region, the time was right for us to establish a local office to provide dedicated client support and project management.
The new CKL Tauranga office will be headed up by two senior consultants who have significant local land development experience and expertise. Alan Wilkinson will be our Tauranga Branch Manager and Mark Batchelor our Tauranga Planning Manager. Clients will have access to all CKL services and professional expertise.
The CKL office will be initially located at Level 1, 73 Spring Street, Tauranga.
We look forward to continuing to support landowners and property developers across the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions. We have plans in the making for a celebratory drink at the new office in the New Year, and will be in touch with more information soon.
|
|
Meet our new team members
We continue to expand our teams and bring new people, talent and ideas into CKL. Over the past six months, we have welcomed 10 new people to CKL in varying roles across the business. Matt Sleet (Transport Engineer), Anna Alexander (Planner), Michelle Carson (Planner), Gairo Van Wyk (Engineer) and Arnold Marquez (Engineer) joined our Hamilton office, further enhancing our planning, engineering and transportation expertise. Frances Deamer-Phillips (Environmental Engineer) and Brandon Taylor (Surveyor) have started in Auckland. And Ryan Dobbin (Surveyor) has joined the team in Te Awamutu. As outlined in an earlier article, we have also appointed two people to our new Tauranga office – Alan Wilkinson and Mark Batchelor (profiled below).
|
|
Alan Wilkinson – Tauranga Branch Manager
Alan is a chartered surveyor and qualified planner with over 30 years’ experience in infrastructure management and land development. He is also the Branch Manager of CKL’s new Tauranga office.
Alan brings diverse experience and professional expertise to CKL clients. He understands our clients’ needs and ensures relationships are built on trust, strong and open communication, and delivering quality outcomes. His outstanding client management expertise and strong history of collaboration and project management positions him well to grow and develop CKL’s presence and reputation in the Bay of Plenty.
Alan has had first-hand experience in business development and management, establishing his own surveying and land development consulting practice in Northland and successfully growing this over time. He has also held senior management roles with Waikato-based engineering and land development consultancies. Alan’s particular areas of interest and expertise are land development, transportation planning, and low impact urban design and development.
|
|
Mark Batchelor – Planning Manager (Tauranga)
Mark joined CKL in October 2019 to head up the planning team in our new Tauranga office. He’s a natural team leader and has strong interpersonal and management skills. These are complemented by technical excellence in his chosen field of planning, with over 22 years’ experience with local authorities, central government, and consultancies in Auckland, Tauranga, Hawkes Bay and Marlborough.
Mark has worked in Tauranga for many years and knows the Western Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions inside out. He has been heavily involved in land development, resource consenting, plan reviews and policy analysis both as a consultant and as a former Land Development Manager for Tauranga City Council.
His project experience spans commercial, industrial, residential, sub-divisions, healthcare and contaminated land. Mark holds a Bachelor of Town Planning and is a professional member of the NZ Planning Institute, Resource Management Law Association and Resource Management Practitioners Group.
|
|
CKL celebrate an outstanding career as Robyn Magill retires
On Friday 20 December 2019, Robyn Magill woke up to a new life, a more relaxed life filled with family, international travel with her husband, and more time to read and garden.
Robyn officially retired from CKL and her career as a draftsperson that has spanned over 50 years.
Robyn started in the industry as a Drafting Cadet with the Department of Lands and Survey upon completing high school in 1968. After 11 years with the Department, Robyn joined a private surveying company in Te Awamutu run by Geoff Gibbs. This practice, over time and via a number of mergers and acquisitions would eventually become known as CKL in 1988.
Robyn has been part of CKL since the very beginning and has played an important role in the business. She has seen significant change as technology has replaced hand drawn, colour coded plans, and manual submission of plans has been replaced with online lodgement of electronic files. Robyn has seen CKL grow from a small local practice in Te Awamutu and Hamilton to a consultancy which now numbers well over 100 team members and a client base across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific.
Throughout Robyn’s career, it is the people she will miss the most. She has made friendships that will last a lifetime and is immensely proud of the part she has played in influencing the futures of young surveyors and planners with whom she has worked.
Robyn’s contributions to CKL are valued by all of us and she will be missed. We wish her every best wish for her retirement and look forward to hearing about her new adventures.
|
|
|
|
Robyn with work pals Vanessa and Glenice
|
|
|
|
Robyn and husband Jon
|
|
|
Robyn and Directors
|
|
CKL set to provide expertise to UNICEF for water, sanitation and hygiene services in Vanuatu
Allowing the submission of a comprehensive proposal to UNICEF to create a Bill of Quantities Toolkit which can be used by facilitators helping communities, schools and clinics to create Drinking Water Safety and Security Plans (DWSSPs), we have been informed that our proposal has been accepted.
We are delighted to further strengthen our humanitarian and disaster recovery work within the Pacific region and work with UNICEF, the Ministry of Education (MoET), the Ministry of Health (MoH) and Department of Water Resources (DoWR) to improve community, school and healthcare water and sanitation facilities in Vanuatu.
As part of the work programme, CKL will create a Bill of Quantities Toolkit which will help facilitators and DWSSP participants create a plan for improvements to water and sanitation facilitates for schools, communities and healthcare facilities. The Toolkit will bridge the gap between risk assessment and implementation.
In Vanuatu they say "Water is life" and we are proud to be taking services to scale and empowering communities.
This work will ensure the people of Vanuatu have improved access to basic drinking water and sanitation. It will also contribute to strengthening capacities of governments to plan for, adapt to, and recover from the effects of hazards and disasters, as well as longer term climate changes that are impacting on water availability and water, sanitation and hygiene services.
The toolkit supports the National Implementation Plan to reach the sustainable development goal 6 for water: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg6
Andy Dow, a member of our environmental engineering team is the principal engineer on the project. He has already been up to Vanuatu and met with UNICEF, the Department of Water Resources, Red Cross, World Vision and ADRA.
Over the next few months, Andy will be working with our partners in Vanuatu to develop the Bill of
Quantities Toolkit and to train facilitators on how to use the tools to improve national services.
UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. UNICEF has spent 70 years working to improve the lives of children and their families. Defending children's rights throughout their lives requires a global presence, aiming to produce results and understand their effects. UNICEF believes all children have a right to survive, thrive and fulfil their potential – to the benefit of a better world.
|
|
|
|
Running a workshop in Vanuatu
|
|
|
Bronwyn Rhynd and Andy Dow
|
|
In the spotlight
Adam Musa, Thomas Chiang & Travis Maylin – Licensed Cadastral Surveyors
CKL is proud to recognise and celebrate the achievements of three of our team members; Adam Musa, Thomas Chiang and Travis Maylin. Awarded their Cadastral Surveyors License, they have worked diligently over the past few years to achieve this professional recognition. After submitting comprehensive reports for eight projects across five disciplines, they were required to attend a full day of interviews with five examiners at Survey and Spatial New Zealand (S+SNZ) in Wellington earlier in November. They faced questions relating to the technical detail of their projects and their response to various project challenges, as well as scenario based questions regarding professional ethics.
In addition to achieving his license, Adam was awarded the Maurice Crompton-Smith Memorial award for the best set of projects for a Certificate of Competency, and Thomas was a nominee for 'best engineering project'.
Congratulations to you all – our clients can be assured they are in excellent hands!
|
|
Our community
Project Echo – Bat Fun Day
A team of 20 people from our Hamilton office, along with their family members, participated in a recent ‘Bat Fun Day’ as part of Conservation Week 2019, organised by Project Echo. The community event was held at Hamilton Lakes to help people learn about the resident population of long-tailed bats or Pekapeka as they are referred to in Maori folklore. The event attracted Hamiltonians as well as people form further afield and included guided walks, bat stories, and the opportunity to build a bat house and create bat art.
Hamilton city is home to a rare species of long tailed bats, which are unique to New Zealand. These small, furry, dark brown/black bats only weigh about 8 to 14g and have a wingspan of about 25cm. Population numbers of the long tail bats are declining due to the removal of trees, predation by pest mammals, and increasing competition for roost sites from rats and possums.
Project Echo was established to raise awareness of the species’ needs and threats, and to gather information on distribution and roost sites. The Bat Fun Day was a fabulous way to teach people about these bats and demonstrate how the team at Project Echo track and monitor the bat population in Hamilton.
The team from CKL provided much needed support for the set-up and pack down of tents and stands, and volunteered throughout the day to help with the various activities. Protecting this critically endangered species of bats is a cause CKL is proud to support. We recognise the impact urban development can have on the natural habitats of our flora and fauna. We take action to ensure our development projects include ecological assessments and management strategies to ensure species like the long tailed bat are protected.
|
|
Rodney Coastal Challenge 2019
For the 8th year running, CKL participated in the Rodney Coastal Challenge - a fundraiser for the Kaukapakapa Scouts. We fielded three teams, each of four people, to complete the 10km run, 30km road cycle, 25km mountain bike, and 8km kayak legs of the race.
The race starts at the water’s edge on the West Coast at Woodhill Forest and runs through Helensville, Kaukapakapa, Makarau, and along the Puhoi River from Puhoi Village to finish at the Wenderholm Regional Park on the East Coast.
This year we had a number of partners and children as part of our teams – providing us with a great spread of age, enthusiasm, and experience. We are not all the fittest athletes but our attitude to the race and ability to laugh at each other makes it a fun day. There is always some healthy competition, friendly rivalry and something to laugh about – whether it is someone tipping (or being tipped) out of their kayak for the second year in a row, using a kayak paddle backwards, or laughing and riding past a colleague after a spectacular stack on their mountain bike. We may end up a little bruised and weary, but the post-race BBQ with friends and whanau is a highlight.
Our teams came in 10th, 13th and 18th in the corporate teams category. A great result, congratulations everyone! Who will join us next year?
|
|
CKL’s commitment to sustainability reinforced by partnership with Sustainable Coastlines
|
|
We are proud to share the news that CKL has formalised our ongoing support for Sustainable Coastlines by entering into a three year sponsorship agreement. We have been actively involved with this New Zealand Charity for a number of years – coordinating beach clean-up activities involving our team members, families and friends.
Protecting New Zealand’s coastline and waterways is important to us and the work of Sustainable Coastlines to keep these areas beautiful for the enjoyment of future generations is strongly aligned with our own values. We have made a commitment to work together to ensure Beautiful Beaches, Healthy Waters, and Inspired People.
We are proud to provide both our physical support for coastal clean-ups as well as professional expertise with regard to best practice environmental and ecological management. This sits well with our client work as we are always mindful of how a development may impact, and be influenced by the surrounding environment. We are committed to ensuring our precious land and resources are cared for and protected for future generations to enjoy. Our goal is to create beautiful, sustainable, communities that enhance the quality of life for residents.
|
|
Opinion: Add value to your property by converting your cross lease to a fee-simple title
For many New Zealanders questioning the value or purpose of their existing cross lease property title, there is an alternative ownership structure available to you which offers more flexibility and freedom – a fee-simple title. Since the introduction of the Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP), the potential for land and property development has significantly increased across Auckland. In order to fully realise the potential of your property, it may be beneficial to convert a cross lease to a fee-simple title.
Understanding cross lease titles
A cross lease essentially means that if two or more dwellings are on the same parcel of land, often sharing a driveway or some common land used for access, ownership is shared, with each owner effectively leasing from the other.
This form of ownership places certain restrictions on each owner in relation to the improvements or alterations they may wish to undertake on their property and requires you to obtain written approval from the other cross lease owner or owners. It could be as simple as adding a deck, erecting a carport, or building a pergola near the BBQ.
In many cases, this can work well for property owners, particularly when you have a great relationship with your neighbour. But what if things aren’t that rosy? Or the neighbour lives off-shore and is difficult to contact? If you go ahead with any changes to your property without gaining approval, structures may have to be removed at the owner’s expense. When you come to sell the property there may be additional headaches to deal with. If the alterations have not been approved by all parties, the property itself may not have been resurveyed and a new flats plan issued, making the old cross lease title defective.
Why consider a fee-simple title?
A fee-simple title provides you with greater freedom and flexibility when it comes to selling or developing your property as you have full ownership of the land. In fact, the Property Institute of New Zealand estimates homeowners of fee-simple title properties may achieve a sale price of 7 to 18 per cent above that of a cross lease title.
This increase in value may be due to the greater potential for development opportunities, and also to the fact that many New Zealanders prefer a full ownership structure.
There is also a perception that cross leases can be complicated, deterring potential buyers and limiting the buyer market. Many property owners are opting to convert a cross lease title to a fee-simple structure in order to make it easier to sell their property, with a view to recouping the cost of the title conversion with an increased sales figure.
Benefits of converting to a fee-simple title:
– Your property may be worth more on a fee-simple title and attract a greater number of potential purchasers;
– The process to undertake any changes, additions or alterations to your property will be more straight forward.
– You will be able to fully realise the development potential of your property.
Converting a cross lease to a fee-simple title
In order to convert a cross lease to a fee-simple title, there is a process that has to be adhered to. All owners of the cross lease will have to agree to the conversion, which comes at a cost. Whether one owner wears that cost, or whether it is split between owners is a decision that has to be made by the parties involved.
The AUP has made what was once a complicated process much simpler and Councils have become very familiar with converting cross lease titles to fee-simple titles.
If you currently own a cross lease property and would like to realise the benefits of converting to a fee-simple ownership structure, CKL can help you.
We will review the title and survey the existing property and advise you on planning, consenting, and engineering works which may be required as well as manage the consenting process and council applications.
In some cases where shared driveways are in place, it may be necessary to bring the property up to standards required by today’s laws. This could vary in scale, from laying new sewer pipes, to upgrading a wall that separates two properties and replacing it with a fire-proofed wall in line with council regulations.
The value in having CKL as your development partner comes into play here as our team of surveyors, planners and engineers liaise with Council to find solutions to any tricky problems or situations.
Buying or updating a cross lease property
The team at CKL also provide advice and counsel to people looking to purchase cross lease properties. We take the time to investigate the documents on record and will work with you to explore all options available to you to ensure you get the most value out of the property.
If you need to update a defective title, our team can manage the entire process for you, from conducting a redefinition survey through to resource consenting to ensure your cross lease title accurately reflects the existing building and services.
If you are interested in learning more about unlocking the development potential of your property, please get in touch with us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
