24 May 2024, Rangitoto Observer

High-rise owners want park deal overturned

Owners of the Spencer on Byron hotel-and-apartments high-rise are attempting to overturn an original council planning consent requiring a portion of the site to be kept as a public garden area.

The body corporate is seeking a new non-notified planning consent that would instead allow 870 sqm of land on the southwest frontage of the 4900 sqm site to be used

for 24 car parks, albeit with the addition of some landscaping.

The land was formerly a landscaped lawn area with specimen trees, but has been used for a site office, construction area and parking during leaky-building repairs since 2017.

“It’s a bit cheeky because we’ve been plugging away for two years to get that park restored,” said the chair of Takapuna

Residents Association (TRA), Steven Salt.

“We had every expectation to have the park back after construction,” he said.

Instead, a pre-application meeting about replacing the original consent with another was held between council staff and bodycorporate representatives last November. An application was lodged by the body corporate last month. To page 2

Opera duo share musical roots

In tune... Rosmini College old boys Matthew Kereama (left) and singing star Moses Mackay credit the high school with fostering their music careers. Now, they are working together on an opera. Stories, pages 13-15.

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Planner says Spencer on Byron proposal ‘appears acceptable’

From page 1

Council planners will decide whether to approve application, but have already indicated the proposal “appears acceptable”.

The TRA, worried about the future of the public space, last year raised concerns with council, which inspected the site in June.

Later, council compliance manager Adrian Wilson told the Observer a compliance officer had visited and had seen a car park created where there had previously been a garden space open to the public.

A council abatement notice was issued requiring Spencer on Byron to restore the area for public use in accordance with consent conditions by 23 December 2023, but it has remained a gravelled parking area.

Wilson said last year council would consider whether further enforcement was required after the expiry of the notice.

The TRA chased council up on this and was told by email in January that the case would be followed up to ensure compliance. It has not had a further update.

version approvals have been granted for 202 hotel rooms and suites.

Parking shortfalls were identified as the primary resource-management issue in decisions about the conversions, with a cash-in-lieu payment to council going towards the development of the Toka Puia public car park.

In April 2022, the body corporate sought a consent to redevelop an “informal car park” at the southwestern end of the site into 26 spaces with a landscaped street frontage. Council advised a resource-management application would be needed to vary conditions for removal of the public-amenity area. An application was lodged, but after council determined this should be publicly notified was not progressed.

The pre-application meeting in November was attended by council senior planner Sam Morrison and senior compliance officer Robyn de Klerk.

Takapuna Residents Association welcomes all locals to its AGM

Monday 24th June

7:00pm at Takapuna Senior Citizens Hall (next to library)

Our meeting and mission will be presented by Chairman Steven Salt with Guest Speaker Desley Simpson Deputy Mayor Auckland Council

Salt said he considered it “a bit bizarre” that the council would consider taking away the park for car parking.

“The land probably should have been vested to the council in the first place.”

Instead it was left in the hands of Spencer on Byron, though the original consent was clear the public amenity was required.

In support of the application for a new consent, body corporate consultants Stellar Project Delivery Specialists canvassed the site’s history.

At this meeting the body corporate pointed out that height restrictions no longer applied to the site under its zoning in the Auckland Unitary Plan and proposed to submit an application to have the existing building approved again and develop a formal car park.

Morrison agreed to the approach and in his meeting summary said: “The proposal appears acceptable overall.” Provided council recommendations, including the suggested removal of two of the proposed 26 car parks were addressed, the proposal “could feasibly be lodged on a non-notified basis”.

Authorised

The hotel building, completed in 2002, exceeded maximum-height rules in the North Shore District Plan, but its consent allowed for additional height and floor area, along with a provision for 20 per cent of the site area being set aside for public open space.

Over time, the authorised use of the building has morphed from primarily being a hotel with 249 rooms and suites to now comprising more permanent residential properties. Con-

Morrison said his comments gave only a “preliminary view” and that a final decision on notification and the application itself could only be made following the lodging of an application, a site visit and review.

De Klerk confirmed an extension to the abatement-notice deadline to allow the preparation of the consent application.

Council suggestions regarding the carpark design and landscaping had been incorporated into the proposal “where possible”, the application said.

Makeover of existing library gains favour

Plans for a combined library and community hub in Takapuna seem to be firming towards a reconfiguring of the existing library, possibly with the addition of a third floor area.

Council officers say either of the plans they are recommending would require the sale of the neighbouring Community Services Building, in addition to the empty and leaking Mary Thomas Centre nearby.

Devonport-Takapuna Local Board members were to debate the options as the Observer went to print, with officers recommending a modification ahead of doing nothing or creating a costly new hub in Waiwharariki Anzac Square.

A council report said the upgrade options (with or without an extra floor) on the existing footprint of the 1980s-era library on the Strand offered the best value for money. The board, which has $3.2 million set aside from the sale of the former library at 2 The Strand, has already voted to dispose of the Mary Thomas Centre in Gibbons Rd. Staff recommend the proceeds of selling the centre, which is yet to be put to market, go towards library design costs.

If the board proceeds with commissioning library designs, it would later vote on a best option and whether to sell the Community Services Building.

by Hon Simon Watts, Parliament Buildings, Wgtn.

Information in the Rangitoto Observer is copyright and cannot be published or broadcast without the permission of Devonport Publishing Ltd.

Lucky Feet? Penguin rescued from shaft on coastal track

A little blue penguin was rescued from a deep shaft on the Takapuna coastal track last week after being stuck for at least 24 hours.

The penguin was found by a passionate North Shore conservationist, Iris Wegmueller, who spotted it when she was out walking on Sunday 12 May.

She immediately called the Department of Conservation (DoC), which sent rangers to assess the situation the following day.

Wegmueller guided rangers Hemirau Waretini and Lily Finlay to the shaft around 5.30pm.

In fading light, the rangers first attempted unsuccessfully to remove the grate from the top of the shaft, which is several metres deep, then attached a pole to a net handle

so it was long enough to reach the bottom. After a few minutes of trying to tempt the penguin into the net with fish, it jumped in and was brought to the surface through a hole in the centre of the grate.

A quick inspection by the rangers deemed the bird healthy enough to be released immediately.

Waretini said if the penguin had appeared unhealthy the rangers would have taken it to receive medical assistance.

Wegmueller said she “couldn’t bear the thought” of the penguin being harmed in any way which is why she returned to see the rescue efforts

She said dog-walkers using the track, which runs between Takapuna and Milford

beaches (interrupted only by a fence installed at a property near Black Rock late last year), often had their pets off-lead, which posed a serious threat to any penguins on the rocks.

“One dog can kill or severely injure several blue penguins in a matter of minutes.”

Little blue penguins aren’t known to live at Takapuna, but often inhabit man-made structures such as gaps in rock walls so can be hard to detect, said a member of DoC’s marine-services team, Dave Houston.

They breed on Motutapu, Tiritiri Matangi and other islands, plus at some protected mainland sites like Tawharanui.

The shaft is a fossil-forest remnant left by a kauri tree consumed by lava from the Pupuke eruption some 200,000 years ago.

Bird rescue... Hemirau Waretini fishes out the penguin (inset) stuck in this deep shaft on the Takapuna coastal track

Iwi receives $10,000 to come up with ways to highlight pa site

An iwi is being given $10,000 to look at how best to tell the story of the Rahopara pa site at the southern end of Kennedy Park in Castor Bay.

The Devonport-Takapuna Local Board is giving the money to Ngāi Tai Ki Tāmaki under its Maori Outcomes programme, to assess what can be done to better show the importance of the site.

At a board workshop last week, the council’s community broker for the area, Deb Doyle, said Ngāi Tai Ki Tāmaki wanted to establish the mana of their ancestor Peretū in relation to the site. It was keen to deliver an environmental assessment through a Maori lens to create a restoration management plan.

The plan would propose how best to tell the site’s story, including through carvings and natural enhancement, such as the types and locations of trees that might be planted.

The iwi was keen to work on pest control in partnership with community environmental group Pupuke Birdsong Project. “This work programme... is about storytelling, but for them storytelling is not just a story, it’s not just a pou, it’s not just a storyboard. The story is the design of the site, it is the ecology of the site, it’s where things are planted and how they’re planted,” Doyle told board members.

“It’s not just getting rid of a few rats and planting a few trees. It’s really creating a greater cultural respect for the site.”

The iwi would also make recommendations on access to the pa, which is reached along clifftop pathways. It would assess ex-

isting council fixtures, including carved pou which it wanted to replace with something more meaningful and true to the history of Peretū, Doyle reported back.

As part of its work it said it would review previous reports on environmental matters, ecology, archaeology and pest management done on the area.

At a budget session during the same workshop, board members approved the allocation of a total of $25,000 for Maori Outcomes work in the 2024-25 financial year, which includes $10,000 of mana whenua initiatives funding for the Rahopara pa work.

The board has signalled it will decide at a meeting in June whether to allocate Ngāi Tai Ki Tāmaki a further $10,000 in the following financial year to start delivery of projects.

Kennedy Park – which is also home to heritage-listed WWII-era military fortifications that require significant and costly restoration – is considered a site with potential to draw more visitors.

The board has allowed for an estimated $950,000 to restore the dilapidated barracks house at 139 Beach Rd, with spending pencilled in to be spread over four years. But the cost and plan for shoring up the military tunnels looks likely to be pushed out several more years due to budget constraints.

Meanwhile, the board still awaits more information on the feasibility and costs of replacing the Kennedy Park stairs to the beach, which were washed out again by Cyclone Gabrielle early last year.

Firth coastal property tender closes

The tender period for the coastal Firth property near Black Rock closes on Friday 24 May.

Public interest is high regarding the fate of the property, being sold on behalf of owners who erected a fence that has divided

the Takapuna-to-Milford coastal track since last September.

The agent marketing the property, Andrew Dorreen of Precision Takapuna, said he was not able to comment before the tender closed.

Hairdresser remembered

Sylvia Maich, the hairdresser who founded long-standing Salon Sylvia on Kitchener Rd in 1968, has been remembered fondly by the Milford Residents’ Association. Maich retired in 1990 and after her husband Hugo’s death moved to Lady Allum Village, where she died last month.

Hospo heroes

Three local venues are in the running for the Outstanding Local Establishment northern section of the Lewisham hospitality awards next month, with chef Jason Kim of Tokki in Milford also up for Auckland’s best chef. Tokki, Taylors of Hurstmere in Takapuna and Cave a Vin, Milford, are nominees for the outstanding establishment. Cave a Vin is also up for Outstanding Wine Experience.

Bike night

The Big Bike Film Night short-film programme celebrating cycling comes to the Takapuna Beachside Cinema on Tuesday 28 May.

On the up

Takapuna Athletics Club pole-vaulter Imogen Ayris has met a qualifying jump standard in a bid to lock in her provisional selection for the Paris Olympics. The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist jumped a personal best of 4.57m.

Anzac Day correction

A photograph in the Observer’s Anzac Day coverage (10 May) was wrongly captioned. The image was of retired Navy man Dennis Manson, who gave the dedication at the Takapuna service, not Commodore Tony Lewis, who gave the Anzac Day address. The error is regretted.

on the prize... Lani Rawle in action for Carmel College, with a black singlet in her sights

A Carmel College student has been selected for the New Zealand junior development volleyball side which will compete in a trans-Tasman tournament in Australia in July.

Year 13 student Lani Rawle was named in the squad last week after a run of success in the sport that included helping Carmel to second place at the Australian Volleyball Schools Cup last year.

She was also named in the tournament teams for the Auckland Senior Volleyball

Championships and New Zealand Secondary Schools Volleyball Championships this year, helping Carmel finish fifth at both tournaments, achieving its best-ever finish at nationals.

The New Zealand development team will meet for two training camps before flying to Adelaide for the Australian Junior Volleyball Championships, being held from 11 to 14 July.

Lani said while it was exciting to be named in the side she also felt relieved after

HEARING AIDS

a long selection process, with multiple trials, the first dating back to last year.

The 17-year-old told the Observer she had friends from other regions in the team who she was excited to play with.

With four other girls in her position gunning for a starting spot, she said the camps would serve as a way to show coaches why she should start.

Before then, she has club and provincial games for North Harbour to help keep her skills sharp.

MP’s signage must come down – Auckland Council

North Shore MP Simon Watts has been told to remove promotional signs from around the electorate because they breach a bylaw.

After investigating a complaint a reader made to the Observer’s sister paper, the Devonport Flagstaff, about the signs, Auckland Council has decided “that the billboards on premises/locations not associated with the office of the Hon Simon Watts are considered third-party advertising”, council compliance manager Adrian Wilson said.

The signs were therefore in breach of the 2022 signs bylaw. “The council has requested that all such signs are removed,” Wilson said.

Watts’ office said last week the MP was travelling in the Pacific on government business but was aware of the issue. Parliamentary Services was looking into the alleged breach, a spokesperson for Watts said.

Removal requested... Auckland Council says signs like this one on Esmonde Rd near Lake Rd are in breach of a bylaw

Alert resident puts police onto teen car-converting ring

Two teenagers were arrested and six vehicles recovered after a member of the public alerted police to a group of youths seen parking near Becroft Park in Forrest Hill.

A police unit responded in the early hours

Commander, Inspector Joe Hunter, said the vehicle exited the motorway at Takanini, where its tyres were spiked. It was then driven on its rims before coming to a stop on Great South Rd.

Two 14-year-olds and a 15-year-old were

Inspector Hunter said five other stolen vehicles were found in Forrest Hill in con

a successful and safe apprehension outcome, our thoughts are with the multiple victims affected by this group’s behaviour.”

The arrests were part of a wider operation across the city over 48 hours, which resulted in a total of 14 offenders facing charges. This included two people caught fleeing from a vehicle when its tyres were spiked in Takapuna, after a group was spotted

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Westlake footballers have high hopes for world cup

Westlake Boys High School’s first XI football team is in China, competing in a world schools tournament with high hopes of going far into the competition.

The team flew to the city of Dalian last Tuesday, full of excitement ahead of the International School Sport Federation Football World Cup, head coach Dave Wright said.

The tournament, involving schools from 30 countries, shares a similar format to the Fifa World Cup, with group and knockout stages.

Westlake faces schools from England, Hungary, Uganda and Saudi Arabia in their group, meaning the side will have to face a range of playing styles and football cultures, Wright said. But they would “fear no one”

and aimed to go deep into the tournament.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most of these players and my job has been to ensure that from a football perspective, they are ready.

“We have done all we can to plan our campaign, keep the kids fit and ensure they have time to adjust when we land.”

Westlake was invited to play in the tournament after winning the national secondary schools title last year, in a season where they became only the second team in schools-football history to won all trophies available to them.

The team ran a fundraiser night where items such as a Manchester United shirt signed by the squad, among other prizes,

were auctioned to raise the money to get to the tournament.

No year 13s from last year’s team are in the squad, despite two being age-eligible, giving an opportunity for younger players to step up, said Wright.

“We have a strong core from the successful group who won the league, the cup and nationals and we’ve had a great start to 2024.

“We’re looking forward to putting in our best performances on the pitch, experiencing the culture off it, and doing all we can to make people back home really proud.”

• As the Observer went to print, Westlake had won 6-3 against a Ugandan school and lost 3-2 to a school from England in the group stage.

Takapuna FC get one back on Shore after Cup defeat

Takapuna Football Club won some revenge for their elimination from the Chatham Cup by North Shore United a fortnight ago, with a 2-1 league victory over their derby rivals on Saturday.

It didn’t take long for the league game to open up at Taharoto Park, with Kerryn Friday putting Takapuna up 1-0 after just two minutes. Brodie Putt levelled for Shore with a penalty shortly before half-time.

A penalty from Jao Moreira in the 74th minute secured victory for Takapuna.

The win lifted Takapuna to ninth place in the Northern Championship, two places above Shore.

Flying the flag...The Westlake Boys High School first XI on their departure for China

Team wears special jerseys (and the odd slow mo)

Mo bros...Takapuna premiers coach Nick Elrick with first five-eighth Theo van der Mei in the Movember fundraiser jersey

Takapuna rugby premiers will don a one-off specially designed jersey in its match against Northcote tomorrow to raise money for the Movember charity.

Takapuna plays Northcote at Onewa Domain at 2.45pm, with the Movember jerseys being auctioned after the match. Some high prices are expected. “A lot of the old

boys come back and bid on their numbers,” premiers coach Nick Elrick said.

The last time the fundraiser was held, in 2022, more than $10,000 was raised for the Movember Foundation.

Some of the players are already growing moustaches in support of the charity. First five-eighth Theo van der Mei, who is

closing in on 40 matches for the premiers, was realistic about his effort. “It’s all I can manage,” he said.

• Takapuna lost to East Coast Bays 17-14 last Saturday to drop to second on the table behind North Shore. Takapuna plays Shore on 1 June in what promises to be a hardfought local derby.

Port of Auckland Community Reference Group meeting

Hear from the CEO about the latest news and developments happening at Port of Auckland. Everyone is welcome! Light refreshments will be provided. Register your attendance at info@poal.co.nz

Thursday 6 June 5.30-7pm, Devonport RSA, 61 Victoria St

Flood Fallout

Braemar Rd wastewater repair should begin in July

Work to replace the Braemar Rd wastewater main in Castor Bay, which was damaged during the Auckland Anniversary floods early last year, is expected to start in early July.

Installing the wastewater pipeline, which will go through four properties on Braemar Rd, along with related work is expected to take six to eight weeks.

The pipe will be installed using a horizontal directional drilling method which allowed contractors to install it directly underneath the properties without causing too much soil disturbance or environmental damage, said Watercare project manager Aidan Wills.

Traffic management would be in place to enable contractors to set up a site for the drill or when materials need to be brought to and from the site.

After the pipe was damaged in the January 2023 floods, Watercare made temporary fixes to connect local homes back to the network. These proved unreliable, resulting in several leaks, and a ‘black flag’ notification being raised at Castor Bay beach.

A temporary bypass using a generator and pump was installed in April last year. It had performed well and prevented further overflows, Wills said.

Watts seeks faster flood action

Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says he wants quicker action on flood remediation measures, including in his North Shore electorate.

Speaking from the Sunnynook Community Centre last week – chosen because he took Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to the suburb during its January 2023 flood clean-up – Watts announced he had secured cross-party agreement for Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee to conduct an inquiry on climate adaptation this year. He hoped for an enduring framework and expected any laws needed for this to be introduced in early 2025.

This replaces an inquiry started by the Labour government under the Environment Committee.

Watts said building resilience to deal with costly natural disasters was vital and needed broad agreement.

A framework would guide decisions when future severe weather events occurred, meaning the country would not have to start from scratch every time.

Communities and businesses needed to understand what infrastructure investment

was planned in their areas and what support would be available to help with recovery from events like slips or floods.

Among measures he flagged was more collaboration and information sharing between national and local government, and state agencies such as NIWA, to identify risks.

Many people did not realise they lived on a flood plain, he said, so that information needed to be easier to access, allowing them to take their own precautions.

Asked later by the Observer how the government was working with Auckland Council to progress infrastructure improvements in the Wairau Valley catchment – which takes in Sunnynook and Milford – Watts said the framework would help guide who did and paid for what.

“Our community has an expectation more will be done.”

Options ranged from managed retreat to adaptation measures, including steps the community could take.

Government was also working on resource-management reform and its Local Water Done Well replacement for Three Waters, said Watts.

BINS IN A HURRY QUICK TURN OVER

BINS IN A HURRY QUICK TURN OVER

The Castor Bays Ratepayers and Residents Association has welcomed news of the impending fix, which follows the completion of another Watercare project in Mairangi Bay last month, where a new $22.5 million pump station was installed. This doubles capacity and should reduce wastewater overflows there and along the coast from Browns Bay to Castor Bay.

Pump stations at Castor Bay and Browns Bay will feed into the new Mairangi Bay station which will be connected through the new East Coast Bays pipeline to the Rosedale treatment plant.

Council lays out infrastructure plans

A community meeting in Milford next week will outline flood-reduction plans for the area.

Auckland Council’s Recovery Office has set up the meeting on Tuesday 28 May, following another session this week (after the Observer deadline) for flood-affected homeowners in Sunnynook and Totara Vale, further up the Wairau Valley.

Staff from council’s Healthy Waters arm will be at the Milford meeting to explain infrastructure improvements.

Advice will be given on what homeowners can do to reduce flooding at their properties and what support is available to help protect people from future floods.

This follows news (reported in the 10 May Observer) that the first buyout offers have been accepted in the area, with more offers expected soon.

The meeting is at the Milford Baptist Church, 3 Dodson Ave, from 5.30pm to 6.30pm. People who are unable to attend but would like to receive an email update can make contact at recoveryoffice@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Cheap Skip Bins

Community garden helps distribute cut-price veges

Forrest Hill’s community garden has partnered with a non-profit organisation to offer produce to local residents at cut prices.

Grow Forrest Hill last week began receiving fruit and vegetables from Food Together, an organisation which supplies produce direct from growers to local groups across the country to distribute.

Volunteers at the garden at Seine Reserve sort the delivery into $15 bags which people pre-order to collect between 2-6 pm on Wednesdays.

Cutting out overheads for storage, sorting and distribution means the produce can be offered for almost half the supermarket price.

Food Together operates pop-ups each week elsewhere on the North Shore, including at Bayview Community Centre and Highbury House, which is where Grow Forrest Hill founder Phoebe Atkinson first saw the potential of the programme.

“We felt like it was a really good fit.”

Atkinson said she has seen the need for affordable produce skyrocket.

“People have got mortgage repayments and there’s job losses. There’s lots of really tricky stuff going on out there so I think affordable produce is something that everybody needs and is welcome to be a part of.”

The partnership not only provided locals with fresh, high-quality fruits and vegeta-

bles but also helped community spirit.

It gave “the opportunity for people to come and connect with the community, to come and see the garden and to see people enjoying the space and working together.

“I think the social inclusion elements are going to be really valuable.”

Anyone wanting to purchase a bag of produce can order on growcollective.co.nz/ producebags before noon on Tuesdays. Produce changes weekly depending on what’s in season.

If Grow Forrest Hill sells more than 80 bags a week, it will start to make a small profit which will go towards the community garden.

Fruit and veg... Volunteers Chhaye Patel and Gayle Coplestone helping pack mandarins and bok choy

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Rosmini old boys shared similar music pathway to contrasting roles

New Zealand Opera assistant director Matthew Kereama (pictured) has plenty in common with one of the stars of the national company’s latest production.

Moses Mackay, who takes one of the solo roles in Le comte Ory , which opens at the Aotea Centre at the end of this month, went through Rosmini College a few years ahead of Kereama, and followed a similar musical pathway through school productions and university. Kereama was in the same year as Mackay’s younger brother and shared a voice teacher with his sister.

tickets to one of their early shows out in Massey.”

Mackay came into the school again a few years later on an Opera in Schools tour. “He had broken his leg, so performed in a wheelchair. We all thought that was pretty cool.”

Takapuna Library

He says the clan are family friends. “For the longest time we have been crossing paths, but we haven’t worked together, so although I feel like I knew Moses before, it’s nice to spend genuine time with him now,” he says. “Moses is a blast.”

Twenty-five-year-old Kereama, who lives in Milford, is the assistant director of Le comte Ory. Unlike Mackay, who is best known as a member of the chart-topping trio Sol3 Mio, he has moved from performance to honing his craft in directing.

“I can relate to the performer in a whole other way than people who maybe haven’t experienced the time, dedication and vulnerability it takes to simply enter the rehearsal room as a singer and begin to work,” he says. This includes the “huge help” of being able to read music, analyse and comprehend a musical score and also appreciate what a performance takes.

“Being an opera singer is really difficult, and extremely demanding as both a performer and a person.”

Kereama says Mackay was a trailblazer at school. “He really put opera on the map.”

He recalls when Sol3 Mio was just being formed. “They were young university students at that time and they came into school and performed at our assembly. I was blown away, and got my mum to instantly buy us

This is Kereama’s third show as an assistant director for New Zealand Opera, having worked previously on Cosi fan Tutte and Mansfield Park. He also works with Auckland Theatre Company, where he is a co-leader of the ATC Youth Company. It was at ATC that he first teamed up with top director Simon Phillips on the play North by Northwest two years ago. The pair have reunited for Ory, due to Kereama being this year’s New Zealand Opera Friedlander Foundation Associate Artist.

Over the years, Kereama has helped with Rosmini productions, but says his most recent support has been limited to watching the first XV in their finals game last year. “I’m still connected to the school, but not as involved.”

He describes Rosmini as a small, close community that equipped him better than he initially realised. “I had some amazing teachers along the way. They saw a potential in me, and a pathway to achieve that potential well before I could.”

He credits singing teacher Christine Hallett, whom he shared with Mackay’s sister Anasetasia. At the University of Auckland, studying for a Bachelor of Music in Classical Voice, he had the same singing coach, Dr Te Oti Rakena, as Mackay did before him.

Kereama expects Le comte Ory to go down well with audiences. “An Italian opera, written in French, set in a modern-day Aotearoa, I mean, doesn’t the comedy write itself?”

The production has Rossini’s “to die for music” along with the humour.

“I think audiences are going to have a really great time.”

• Moses Mackay interview, page 14

2024 Mystery in the Library Series Blood by the Beach

Join five Kiwi authors for an evening of criminally good conversation. Kirsten McKenzie chairs The Ngaio Marsh Best Crime Novel 2023 finalists Fiona Sussman and Simon Lendrum, past finalist and bestseller Eileen Merriman, and former detective and debut author Cristian Kelly

Wednesday, 29 May 2024, 6pm refreshments, 6.30pm panel

Entry by Koha

RSVP the library at 09 890 4900 or email TakapunaEvents@aucklandcouncil. govt.nz

The way you collect your library holds is changing

We’re introducing a new holds pick-up system at our libraries starting Tuesday 28 May.  When you visit a library to collect an item you have requested, it will not be shelved alphabetically with your name on a paper slip. Instead, your requested library items will be on numbered shelves in the holds pickup area at your chosen library.  You will receive an email to let you know your library item is ready to be picked up. This email will give you all the information you will need to find your hold at the library: This information will also be available in the account section of the Auckland Libraries app. Our free app can be downloaded on Apple and Android devices from the Apple App Store or Google Play store.

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ALBANY HEAT PUMPS

Shore-raised Sol3 Mio star back from Italian base

Moses Mackay is a believer in butterflies in the stomach as a good guide to reaching outside your comfort zone.

The North Shore-raised singing star who attended Rosmini College and found early success with trio Sol3 Mio is back in Auckland from his Italian base and back performing with New Zealand Opera for the first time in more than a decade.

During a break in rehearsals for the production of Le comte Ory, which opens in Auckland next week, he tells the Observer he still feels nerves preparing to perform. “But they’re not the bad nerves caused by poor preparation, but the good nerves of wanting to be a great connector.”

Baritone Mackay is relishing the fun of the Rossini opera, in which he plays Raimbaud, the cheeky sidekick of the count of the title, sung by tenor Manase Latu. The comic role is a good fit for Mackay, who has natural charm and a quick wit on top of his singing talent, now being further polished in Europe.

One thing the 34-year-old has no intention of repeating is his reality-television show appearance as The Bachelor, something he did out of curiosity while stuck in New Zealand during Covid travel restrictions. But he is still keen to explore his passion for film. “My love for the creative arts is endless.”

A career in music wasn’t always a given, but he says the musical education he received at Rosmini laid a great foundation.

Times were sometimes tough when Mackay and his three siblings grew up in a loving family in a series of state houses. “We came through the Housing New Zealand system when I was growing up. It was very difficult.

Living in Bologna... Moses Mackay has been taken for an Italian during performances in Italy

We shuffled from house to house.”

From early days in Birkdale, the family moved to Anzac St, Takapuna, close to Rosmini, where he thrived.

He became head boy, like his brother before him, and was on course to study engineering at university. But school music productions and rugby were competing interests.

Injury eventually derailed his rugby aspirations and his music teacher, Sue Williams, changed his intended study path, persuading him to audition for a classical performance degree at the University of Auckland. She had

earlier encouraged him to sign up for choir, after which came roles in school musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and The Sound of Music

Mackay says because he trusted his teacher he gave the university audition a go, all the while thinking, “Who studies music?”

Though his parents favoured him studying engineering for the security it would offer, he thinks he ended up in the right place. “Music was the one that was just natural to me. The path that I followed is the right one for me.”

It also opened up a whole new world. “I always wanted to buy a family home, somewhere everyone could always come back to.” The success of Sol3 Mio enabled him to set up his parents years ago. “Then I headed off,” he laughs.

He has a bolthole on Waiheke Island and family remains an important anchor, but when Ory ends he will fly out again.

Mackay is unsure if he will be able to fit in a visit to Rosmini on this trip home, but has spoken to its choral director, Vanessa Kay, about the possibility.

During rehearsals he has enjoyed talking with another Rosmini alumnus, Matthew Kereama, who is the opera’s assistant director and knows Mackay’s younger siblings. “It’s a lovely little coincidence,” Mackay says. (Kereama story, page 13.)

Another coincidence is reconnecting with his half-Samoan, half-Italian cousins who live not far from his Italian base in Bologna, where he shifted a year ago. “One went to Rosmini as well.”

Asked what advice he might have for current students, Mackay says if there’s any secret it is “being able to listen to yourself

for opera role

and your true heart” and to ask “What makes me tick, what makes me nervous, what makes butterflies in my stomach?”

Moving to Italy after travelling back and forth to Europe for years, was part of that challenge for him. “Bologna is just a really nice-sized place. There’s a lot of students – it has one of the oldest universities in the world,” he says. His vocal coach, Sherman Lowe, also lives in northern Italy.

Mackay has performed in the south, first at a festival in Sicily and this year in Puglia, where he was the only non-local, but was in any case mistaken for an Italian. He says his spoken Italian is probably better than his French – the language of Ory – but adds: “You have to know what you’re singing about.”

Mackay is now composing in Italian, for voice and orchestra, in what he describes as a neo-classical style. He plans to record the songs, which will be in a quite different genre from his debut album Grace, which was dedicated to his late grandmother, who in his early years lived in Devonport and played a big part in bringing him up. It topped the New Zealand charts in 2023, when Mackay also received the Dame Malvina Major Award, which came with $50,000 to help foster his career.

Mackay is also working on a film score for a documentary in Los Angeles, and says recording again with brothers Peni and Amitai Pati in Sol3 Mio is on everyone’s long list.

For now, all three members are focusing on their own solo operatic careers. “The biggest thing is scheduling.”

• New Zealand Opera’s national tour of Le comte Ory begins on 30 May at the Aotea Centre.

30th May Final Night of South African Film Festival.

Also playing IF, Kingdom Planet of the Apes, Fall Guy, Challengers, Kung Fu Panda, Wicked Little Letters, Golda, Joika, Rose Rosey (Punjab), The Moon is Upside Down, MacBeth, Carmen, Swan Lake, Late Night with the Devil, Godzilla, Migration and Wonka!

(M) 112min

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