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Surveyors give awards for excellence

Surveyors give awards for excellence

The New Zealand Institute of Surveyors gave Gold and Silver Awards for Excellence at its annual awards dinner on Saturday October 16 in Auckland.

The Award of Excellence Gold award went to Landlink Ltd from Waikanae, for the Bishops Vineyard, Ohau Village, Horowhenua. The award was given for excellence in this village fringe development.

This large, rural residential development successfully blends in with a working vineyard and a high level of environmental protection, the assessors noted. The project features a master planned layout of four “precincts”, a large vineyard set among two stands of totara bush and two areas of preserved historic stone buildings.

Registered Professional Surveyor Paul Turner of Landlink said the surveyors were involved in all aspects of the project – from urban design, resource consents, engineering design, the technical work around the land transfer surveys right through to the end of the title process.

The surveying challenges included an eroded river, complex resource consents, documentation, consent notices and multiple stages.

“The environmental elements of the project involved protecting the river and totara reserve, while new stone walls built from locally sourced stone from the river that runs through one end of the property was designed to blend with the historic stone buildings,” Turner noted.

“The road is carefully ‘draped’ on to the landscape – no big concrete kerbs – so as to create low impact on the visual environment, the distant snow-covered ranges and a background of vines and native trees,” he added.

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In giving this project the gold award the assessors rated it markedly superior in terms of professional and technical challenges, complexity and innovation, environmental treatment and client satisfaction.

In response to the award, Turner said: "The Landlink team was delighted to be recognised so highly for excellence and innovation by the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors. The judges agreed that the Bishops Vineyard project demonstrates the breadth of a surveyor’s skill in managing this type of project from the start to the end.

“I think that the public are starting to recognise how those skills are enabling emerging new urban design and development outcomes throughout the country. The public are demanding more than just lifestyle blocks – they want a pleasant surrounding but also need to be close to the services a village offers as well as protecting the environment – it’s a tricky balance.

“It has been a pleasure working for a client who encourages innovative approaches to urban design and construction and who also understands the complexities of the resource consent, engineering and survey processes.

The Silver Award was given to Stonefields, St Johns, Auckland, entered by Auckland surveying firm Woods. The assessors noted that this project represented a high level of merit in urban development.

Stonefields lies at the north-eastern base of Maungarei (Mt Wellington) in central Auckland and was previously operated as a basalt quarry. This project has developed the site into a master-planned community close to the centre of Auckland. The three stages of the project created some 615 lots, a primary school site and two neighbourhood reserves.

Planning issues included city council objectives for intensification and commercial imperatives, achieving positive urban design outcomes, meeting development infrastructure requirements, mixed-housing styles with medium-density housing, pedestrian access and public transport with a logical roading hierarchy.

The Woods surveyors led the developer through the master-planning phase and oversaw the subdivision to high levels of competence and client satisfaction, said the assessors.

The Bogle Young Surveyor of the Year Award was given to Matt Amos of Land Information New Zealand. Amos recently achieved the status of Registered Professional Surveyor with the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors.

“Receiving the Young Surveyor of the Year award is a great honour,” Amos said. “It is not given out too frequently, so to receive it is something special. It was pretty humbling to hear the list of achievements that were read out from the citation as I had not really set out deliberately to achieve many of them. Most of the achievements were a result of being presented with an opportunity that I was luckily in the position to be able to take advantage of. As such, credit needs to be given to the people that have provided me with the opportunities.”

Paul Catchpole of New Plymouth, David Fox of Christchurch and Donald McKay of North Shore City were made Fellows of the NZIS at the dinner.

The Fulton Medallion (Class A.2) was awarded to Tony Bevin, Bill Robertson, Gerald Turner, Alan Radcliffe and Graeme Crocker in recognition of their contributions to the report of the Maori Land Committee on Maori land issues and the surveyor’s role in this tenure.

The Fulton Medallion (Class A.2) was also awarded to Donald McKay in recognition of this work as principle author of Land Title Surveys in New Zealand (2nd Edition) and to Matt Amos in recognition of his paper New Zealand Vertical Datum 2009.

ENDS


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