A spate of fires, piles of rubbish and a pack of roaming dogs are all plaguing Auckland's once-prestigious Gulf Harbour Country Club.
By Luka Forman of RNZ
The club was abruptly closed in 2023, and the main building burned down in 2024, in circumstances Fire and Emergency described as suspicious.
Since then, Auckland Council has been in a stalemate with the owners of the club over its future, and now a community trust is considering buying it.
The Gulf Harbour Country Club in Auckland has been caught in another blaze overnight. (Source: Breakfast)
As well as two fires in recent months, rubbish has piled up and residents have reported a pack of roaming dogs that belonged to a squatter living there.
It was "sad for the community to see it be degraded", volunteer coordinator for the Gulf Harbour Community Trust Dalen McLean said.
The trust had set up regular volunteer days to mow the course and keep weeds in order, he said.
"The team has cleared the banks all along here. You can see the piles of dead gorse just waiting to be collected up and moved away. So that was a fantastic team effort."
The Gulf Harbour Country Club was once a prestigious course, played on by Lydia Ko and host to the World Cup of Golf and two New Zealand Opens.
But despite that history, the owners of the property, Long River Investments, did not seem interested in maintaining it.
Local Auckland councillor John Watson believed it had been left to go to ruin to get around a 999-year covenant on the land that it had to be kept as green space.
"To make this look like an abandoned chunk of land that you can't do anything with. Both have failed; the community maintains the land," he said.
The director of Long River Investments, Wayne Bailey, appears to have moved to Australia and RNZ was unable to contact him.
Auckland Council community manager Rachel Kelleher said the council was owed $44,209 by the company and was seeking a further $244,631 in court for demolition costs.
Watson said that with the owners not willing to cooperate, the council was in a stalemate over the course's future.
In the meantime, he worried about fires at the course getting closer to property.
"There's a real concern that these people aren't going to stop and the fact that they're getting away with it means effectively, given the psychology of arson, that they're encouraged to keep going."
Local Matt Travell said people in the community had also felt threatened by a pack of around six roaming dogs at the golf course.
"I can't say whether they're dangerous or not. But definitely they're not under control at all times. There was an incident where the pack of dogs surrounded a guy in a mobility scooter and he was afraid to leave in case they chased him."
However Koa Koangi, who has been living in a caravan at the property, said his dogs were not harmful and he kept the biggest ones tied up.
Travell said the dogs and rubbish at the course were just symptoms of the bigger problem, and he too pointed the finger at the course's owners.
Director of the Gulf Harbour Community Trust Duncan Miller said it hoped to buy the course for community ownership, converting part of the driving range into a retirement village to bring in funds for the renewal of the course.
SHARE ME