Oil Changers has been trading on Northcote Road for close to twenty years and employs 10 staff. The building housing the business, however, has been proposed to be demolished by Foodstuffs to make way for supermarket car parking. News that the wrecking ball could be hanging over Oil Changers came to light recently in a variation to Foodstuff’s Resource Consent for the PAK’nSAVE supermarket under construction on the corner site. Oil Changers’ owner, however, has no plans to leave the site.
When originally consented in January 2020, the design for the PAK’nSAVE supermarket on the busy Main North Road / Northcote Road corner featured an underground car park, a fuel station, and promised to “…function as a lifeline hub in an emergency, distributing goods including food, fuel and drinking water and accommodating Civil Defence.” (Stuff, October 2018).
Both Oil Changers and also the former Mad Butcher building were retained in the original design.
In an amendment granted in June 2021 however, “as a result of geotechnical investigations” the basement car park has been removed from the design, and the commercial buildings on the corner site are set to be demolished to provide replacement parking spaces. The proposed fuel facility has also been removed from the design. Continue reading “PAK’nSAVE Papanui: design change could impact Oil Changers”
