What would a typical Auckland suburban street look like if we intensified to meet the housing shortage? Auckland has about 550,000 dwellings, and estimates of the shortage are placed at about 50,000. In other words, we need to increase our housing stock by about 10%. An average street in a suburb like Mt Eden has about one hundred ~800m² sections. So the question is, how do we turn a street like this into a street with 110 dwellings? Or in other words: for a given housing typology, how many extra dwellings do we get per plot, when we replace a single family home?
It’s tempting to look overseas, to the world’s greatest cities, like London, Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, or New York. But we have neither the populations, cultures, climates, nor the knowledge in our housing institutions that those cities have. Instead, it’s more useful to use what we’ve already achieved with Auckland’s Unitary Plan to see what we should do in the future.
Duplexes
A duplex is fairly straightforward: it’s essentially two single family houses that share a wall. A great case study here is Maroa Road: Kāinga Ora took two ~700m² sections with single family houses, and replaced them with two duplexes, plus three smaller standalone units, or a total of 7 dwellings where there were previously 2. The pair of duplexes themselves sit on about half the section, so would fit into our typical suburban section with some room to spare.
That is to say, if we replace each standalone house with a duplex, we’d need to replace 10 single family houses in our 100 house street to hit 110. And if we replace each standalone house with a pair of duplexes, that’s just 5 of our 100 sections in need of redevelopment.
Townhouses
Some of our suburbs have already given up the “kiwi dream” of the great big backyard, and instead have a single family home sitting on smaller sections in the 400m² to 600m² range. In many instances like this, we can go denser than the duplex: the townhouse. The beauty of this is you can more or less go as skinny as you need, just by going higher as you squeeze more in.
Hobsonville Point is Auckland’s crown prince of townhouse developments, with just about every possible permutation of fat and thin. These vary from fitting two townhouses to a plot all the way up to the thinnest ones, at just 3.5 metres wide, offering 5 or 6 per plot. So, our already slightly intensified street needs 5 sections converted into our thick, 2 storey townhouses, or just 2 sections for our leanest, 3 storey ones.
Apartments
Being New Zealand’s primary provider of social housing, Kāinga Ora has to figure out how to house as many people as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, elevators are not cheap, so KO has been leading the way with a utilitarian beauty: the 3-storey walk-up. Cambourne Road fills up a 800m² Papatoetoe lot with 12 units, but is modular enough to fit 6 into a plot of 400m², and is flexible enough to be deeper but thinner when the site dimensions demand it. Just one pair of these will slightly more than meet our average street’s needs.
Extending the concept (quite literally) of the 3 storey walk-up is a KiwiBuild development: 340 Onehunga Mall. Due to Onehunga’s thicker, squarer grid, it’s able to run deeper than many other buildings get the opportunity to. This is fitting 42 apartments (plus car parking, which unfortunately takes up about a third of the site) onto a 3,100m² site previously occupied with just three old villas. Such an increase would not only readily exceed the amount we need for our street, but 3 others, too!
So how could we achieve this degree of intensity without depending on Onehunga’s unique grid? Well, the answer is just to build with elevators: if you build twice as high, you can provide the same number of dwellings on half the amount of land. Ockham’s recent 5-storey build Modal is perhaps best-in-genre at doing almost exactly this. Despite being on an awkward corner site, this beast is slapping 32 apartments on a single 800m² section in the heart of Mt Albert. You’d only need one of these on every third street like ours’ to achieve the density to overcome our housing shortage.
Conclusion
Auckland may be Aotearoa’s biggest and fastest growing city, but ultimately it has a population somewhere in between Phoenix’s and Perth’s. The solutions to the housing crisis look a lot less like Moscow & Pripyat, and more like a quaint, touristy city somewhere in Western Europe. As a bonus: here’s what each of Maroa Road, Cambourne Road, Onehunga Mall, and Modal looked like prior to redevelopment, respectively:
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The question I would like an answer re Auckland’s and New Zealand’s housing is how can the housing crisis be resolved if Jacinda Ardern says ‘sustained moderation’ remains the Government’s goal when it comes to house prices, as people ‘expect’ the value of their most valuable asset to keep rising.
Here is my best attempt. Is there any better suggestions?
https://tuesdayclub.nz/could-an-independent-housing-commissioner-be-the-housing-jedi-knight-that-new-zealand-needs/
Sorry – I lived in a Russian apartment building for a year. It was OK.
Sure it was a bit run down, but my apartment was cosy and warm (coal fired boilers feeding the whole area). And the cold water went off at times in the winter (frozen lakes), But the buildings were well separated with park like areas with grass, trees and benches for seating. The locals used to gather outside and the kids played.
It’s not like NZ where the blocks are built hard against each other with no space between,
In Singapore they do the same with space between the blocks.
So don’t run them down without understanding what they are really like,
Sorry wasn’t meant to be responding to you, Brendon 🙂
No worries : )
It is an interesting quote. I too have heard that Russian apartments are a lot nicer than they look
I lived in a Communist era apartment block in Krc in Prague. At the time I was in my 20s and it was a bit far from the centre for me. did eventually move to a slightly older, and half the height apartment block in Zizkov – which was far better for my social life.
However, the apartments in Krc were warm and solid and in between the blocks were football fields and green spaces. Schools were walking distance from the apartments as well as a supermarket and other commercial. There was a forest nearby and it was a 5 min bus ride to the Metro station.
Overall, it was not a bad place to live and actually far safer for children in terms of getting around by themselves than suburban Auckland. Kids would be out on those football fields all night in summer.
+1
I visited Prague once, and we stayed in a hotel in the suburbs. I saw many streets lined with 4 or 5 storey buildings on the tram to the city. I’m thinking that if Auckland were a sane city, areas like Grey Lynn would have a similar type of development as these.
And there were also some of those tower blocks nearby, in a quiet and traffic-free setting. Whoever built those apartments understood the importance of what is around them.
Now, what does the street grid around that ‘Modal’ apartment block look like again?
It all depends on where your Russian apartment is and in what era it was built, the close in apartments in Moscow and St Petersburg aren’t nice, they don’t have the land around them, in Moscow they are 10/15/20 floors or more. The newer blocks with decent facilities are far from the city centers in the suburbs, often well away from public transport, both cities have run down there tram networks, so people in these developments are car dependant.
Traffic in Russian cities is beyond insane. I was in Moscow some years ago when the authorities decided to have a carless day, the public transport network crashed, it could not cope, ques were out the doors of all the train and metro stations, buses were packed like sardine cans.
I think you comments are a bit out of date.
I’ve spent a lot of time all over Russia over the past couple of years. Their public transport has been transformed in St. Pete and Moscow and the traffic is not a patch on London or Auckland.
Your comment re rundown is more correct as you head east in to the poorer Asian parts of Russia.
What struck me about the soviet-era apartments in Irkutsk where I spent some time about 8 years ago, were how noticeably traffic-free their environs were. Most residents did not own cars (this may have changed since 2012?), and those who did own cars had to garage them in remote garaging compounds which could be several hundred metres away. So although the apartment blocks looked forbidding and austere to the eyes of a Kiwi, their design and surroundings did not suffer from the blight caused by trying to squeeze cars in everywhere. The open spaces between the blocks were grassy or wooded areas for recreation, not barren and sterile car-parks.
I concur with Henrik however, that traffic tended to dominate the main routes. Unless Russia takes steps to curb its growth in car-use, things are likely to get much uglier.
See above. Things have changed quite a bit since then re traffic.
We need to build both for yesterday – the shortage – and also tomorrow – 300k+ people in the next 10 years.
Which is 100k+ dwellings.
I like the current way everything is sort of haphazardly designed on a plot by plot basis and sprinkled throughout existing communities. Better outcomes for everyone involved. This is where in part the American and to a lesser extent british ran into issues too, concentrated communities in poorly designed “projects”. It is however, less economical than building 10,000 of the exact same building.
Great post. I often wonder if we intensify the suburb with high denisty housing/apartment, can the infrastructure cope with increased volume of water and especially the wastewater? I have noticed with the intensification of the housing, the traffic volume increase, especially with lot of on the road parking. We need to put a public transport first before adding more houses.
The transport is a chicken vs egg scenario. Difficult to justify adding PT to an area when it wouldn’t be used that much now. And people like yourself say there needs to be more public transport before building in an area. The advantage of busses is that routes can be changed in a short timeframe and more services can be run easily. So as demand increases the level of bus service can pretty much match in real time up to a point. There also needs to be an expectation that if you own one of these apartments, then either you should pay an extra 60k when you buy it for the carpark, or have the expectation set that you will not own a car. Unfortunately, it would appear that real estate agents haven’t been saying this and have been telling buyers that on street parking will be fine. (surprise surprise, very honest profession). In the end it doesn’t really matter how saturated on street parking is, if you want a guaranteed park then build one on your land. The street is public land. Also telling others what they can and cant build on their land doesn’t fly that well with me. As for the other infra, it seems that is already being taken care of with major projects by watercare, and power tunnels aren’t nearly as expensive as transport tunnels. These services aren’t as political and tend to just work quietly in the background. Except the odd time when they dont.
I guess the difficulty is in getting the timing spot on- Hobsonville Pt is full of cars, how long do people realistically wait until PT is available for them.
Yes, although I will argue that these outer rim suburbs probably aren’t the best place for intensification. (still better than Greenfields) If you are going to intensify like the author is suggesting, it might as well be more weighted to inner suburbs. Hobsonville point has no real long haul bus or rail route to the city that is congestion free, so there is a lot less of a reason to take it. They do have the ferry, which is slightly harder to upgrade than busses, which is what we see with the saturation of those services and zero upgrade path laid out. So yes the counter argument to it being easy to add more bus services is the northwest. Density out there will still drive the need for a main trunk rapid transit service though, it’ll just be slow as. I’m more commenting on areas <30 minute potential feeder bus trips to an existing rapid transit station. Which is the majority of the city.
Even if public transport is not viable in the early stages of housing-scheme development, provision for it should be thoroughly factored into the plans. In particular this means designating things like rail-corridors and station sites from the start, even if the infrastructure doesn’t get built until later. The cost of retro-fitting transport-corridors through developments that have not allowed for this is huge.
“I have noticed with the intensification of the housing, the traffic volume increase”
The traffic volume increases far more from housing put into greenfields sprawl as those residents and anyone visiting / servicing their suburb has to drive through many suburbs to get there.
Does this +10% evenly spread require much broader upzoning? Like everywhere?
Hard to argue 3 stories shouldn’t be as of right everywhere, many a NIMBY crafts their outrage in a three level dwelling. Just one further apart from its neighbours I guess. So site coverage restrictions would also have to be relaxed too.
But is surely way preferable to more countryside and climate ruining unaffordable sprawl 30 km away, needing everything added from three waters and transport to schools and shops and the whole she-bang. Nutso.
I remember in the 1970’s when we lived in Singapore, a friend moved into one of the HDB 14 level apartment blocks. They came from a kampong with night cart toilets and one standpump for water in the middle of the village, so 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms , a fitted kitchen and a generous living room was a big change. However, the block did not stand on its own, there were a dozen of them in a complex with open space, a playground, a covered market/foodhall, and a light rail station. My friend’s only complaint was that there was nowhere for the chickens or the pig!
I hope they didn’t keep a pig on their balcony. Graham Greene wrote a story about that. https://genius.com/Graham-greene-a-shocking-accident-annotated
Very good. And so sweet “There were babies in her pale blue pupils, babies that rolled their eyes and made water.” chuckle…
Interesting. I’ve been researching a Kiwi version for the sites that just sit bare, like this one has been for years: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Shelly+Beach+Road,+Auckland+1011/@-36.8444043,174.7409099,176m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d0d47889d3cd319:0x6305d7006b4dc226!8m2!3d-36.8427975!4d174.7425218
I think Council could have a team that helps tiny house communities use these spaces; move them on as a group to another site when the site is developed. Water would be easy. Composting toilets serviced by a commercial firm wouldn’t cost too much.
In fact, I think I heard someone was looking at this… Panuku, maybe? Anyone know?
It’d be a tricky thing to do legally, unless council/ govt land. There’s a bit of stuff happening like this. https://www.interest.co.nz/property/103630/government-plans-buy-and-rent-about-800-more-houses-and-set-temporary-housing The story so far, and probably the fairest from a societal point of view, is that people on the social housing list would be the ones housed, not people who are simply making a lifestyle choice. Otherwise it’d be difficult to square with council/ govt funding priorities and how council should be reimbursed (if they’re not able to collect from the usual sources like development contributions and rates).
Another article here https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/122999865/tiny-house-village-gives-hope-to-homeless-when-they-need-it-most
Ground works have started on that site a few weeks ago
This seems like a liability black hole for the council, plus the massive potential for bad press when time comes to move the camp. “Newmarket tiny homes forcibly relocated to ex-industrial site as site makes way for apartment blocks” etc etc.
I could see the argument for something more permanent being built to fill a similar need, although less fashionable, they’d be cheap, hopefully well designed, “shoe box apartments”. But it doesn’t really have the same sex appeal as the less space efficient detached tiny home. Or the mobility of it being a trailer.
I would love a low-maintenance terrace house with four beds and 150sqm of family living space. The only thing about my current living situation that wouldn’t work for is the stupid number of cars I own – although I’m not convinced that there wouldn’t be a market for that kind of thing – where the entire lower floor could be a garage and possibly even a convertible space on the bottom floor that could double as further vehicle storage. There’s a lot of people with classic cars or toys that would like that flexible space. For many, retaining that usable space would be enough of an incentive to get them to sell up their section, turn that development potential into cash and not have to give up their toys or hobbies or workshop space – you get the idea.
Currently the ‘garages’ backing onto laneways are glorified parking sheds, and back yards are often pokey. Making more interesting use of that space on terraced housing developments could be a bit of a game changer. It’s such a shame to have an efficient use of space when it comes to the house itself but all that wasted potential behind it.
Such things exist, these places in Te Atatu Pen are 2 or 3 bed apartments atop a huge garage space.
https://i.imgur.com/s8ri94g.jpg
Or this style
https://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction-2782722255.htm
They exist, but not en masse and usually either as a pokey flat above a garage or in a quasi-industrial estate. But hopefully as terrace housing becomes more accepted, there’ll be more interest in doing different things and we can see more of 3 – 4 bedroom options going up multiple more levels than we build currently.
Welcome to the team, Scott! It’s going to be great working with you. Wonderful first post.
Only one problem. I am missing most of the images. Guess they are ad-blocked. Are you doing something different to the other posts?
Most of them are hosted on twitter, I presume taken from tweets. GA should really download them and host the images themselves if they want them to be there in a few years and / or not get changed. Not sure how twitter handles image retention long term.
What is the story with guest posts? who is invited to write / allowed to write? How full is the post schedule. I presume posts that don’t have a clock might have a bit of a backlog before they see the light of day.
Jack, you are most welcome to submit a guest post for consideration. Just click Contact Us. We’re volunteers though and very busy. We endeavour to respond as soon as we can but it can be a little random. The post schedule goes up and down in how full it is.
We need to sort out our body corporate laws first otherwise apartments really aren’t suitable for most to purchase – only to rent.
It would be great to see some really big 10 level quality apartment blocks in the CBD fringe areas.
Also Auckland needs to do away with volcanic sight lines etc (at least in the CBD) to allow for much bigger and more high rises in that area.
No mention yet of universal design or the fact that the retirees you want to downsize can’t do 3-storey walk ups. I’m looking with interest at the big new block in Sandringham Rd. Will be good when the potential of the arterials is met: there are some nice houses but quite a few frowsy-looking ones in both Sandringham & Dominion Roads. To me that is more appealing than pepper-potting in the side streets.
The Planning Committee resolved at its December meeting to:
d) agree that a national approach is the preferred way to achieve regulatory changes to provide for universal design in residential development
e) endorse the ongoing advocacy of the Mayor, the Chair of the Planning Committee and the Deputy Chair of the Planning Committee in seeking that central government introduces requirements for universal design into the Building Act and Building Code.
They’ve decided the Building Act and Building Code is the right place for this, but they could just put it into the Unitary Plan without recourse to government, could they not? Is this a case of Council not being strong enough to weather criticism and needing the government to shoulder it? Or am I missing something?
On walk ups – one third of the units in a three level walk up would be ground level. More of a concern are townhouses, where all of the units have stairs.
They tried to and it was thrown out when preparing the AUP – the conclusion was that it was not legal for a district plan prepared under the RMA to place restrictions on a separate piece of legislation such as the Building Act/ Building Code.
I really struggle with this argument as universal access is a laudable goal, but there is no efficient way to achieve it. For universal access you are looking at single story attached or detached dwellings, or elevators. Either of those options add massive costs. Making every single building universally accessible is also going to make buildings universally expensive.
I guess I don’t see how building four flats on a single level is better for people who need level access than building those same four units, with 8 more on top. How is pitting people who need level access and those who don’t against eachother competing for limited housing better than building enough housing that people who need level access can easily find affordable level access?
+1 while it would absolutely benefit those with physical disabilities, it would be at a significant cost to the rest of society which IMO would be too great to be justified. There is a balance to be had.
So long as there are plenty of places for people like this to live (in every area) and all services and all appropriate jobs are accessible then its really hard to justify making all the rest of new houses fully accessible.
The resolution of the problem needs to be balanced with an understanding of the numbers involved. The direction of action isn’t ‘balanced’, though. There just aren’t enough accessible places to live, and it negatively affects people.
Do you mean that the current direction isn’t balanced? The current direction is equally terrible for anyone. We ban the dense typologies that might be inaccessible to some people so housing is expensive, but we don’t make any of the buildings with ground level entrances accessible. I think one obvious thing we could do would be to mandate level entrance on any unit that is on the ground floor.
There is no way we can solve access issues without also addressing the fact that we simply don’t have enough homes.
I’d say BC laws as they stand are terrible for renters. They exist only to serve owners and owner occupiers, renters have zero input into the rules of the community they live in.
I could see the argument for long term renters to be given some power, depending on the rest of the rental laws. But me and my friends move every year or second year, I don’t see how we should have any impact on the long term outlook of the building. We are never a part of the community, and don’t really want to be, we have lives with various clubs and organizations. Hardly ever even meet the neighbors, why should we have any power over them?
There’s nothing about current body corporate legislation that makes living in apartments “unsuitable”. I agree that perception is widespread but it’s based on ignorance.
Our body corporate legislation would benefit from reforms but it shouldn’t be made some kind of scapegoat. Reforms won’t change the perception that body corporates are bad because that perception is misinformed anyway.
The much bigger issues that make _some_ apartments unsuitable for owner occupiers include:
– Apartment buildings on leasehold land (most of Auckland’s waterfront apartments).
– Apartment buildings from the 90’s/00’s with major defects.
– Apartment buildings with sky high insurance premiums (Wellington).
– Banks refusing to lend on smaller, cheaper apartments.
They tried that in the 70’s/80’s on the Remuera and Jevious Rd ridges but then the complaints started for blocking views and shadows from the buildings .
I worked on one in Remuera and all of sudden one was building built next door and the tennant in the tall one complianed as she was going to lose her view and it was stopped at 5 stories . If they had built it two sections up the road the ridge today would have had 3 slender apartment blocks in that short space not 2 and 1/2 towers . And if my memory serves me there was to be a 3rd tower on the Jervious ridge also .
But with change of Council and district plans all this came to an end .
A big limitation of townhouses right now is that you’re always part of a body corporate. Which implies being part of a home owners association. Many people will not touch those with a barge pole. Overseas it is perfectly normal to have terraced houses on freehold sections.
This would be easier if those townhouses can have a public street in front of them. A small lane is enough, similar to the driveways in current developments.
These lanes could also reduce the stupid amount of space we dedicate to driveways, it is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 driveways side-by-side to individual houses in the back.
It is perfectly legally possible to create freehold terraced houses on shared driveways in New Zealand. Developers choose not to do it because there is a public perception that you need to set up a body corporate to make your neighbours behave. I am convinced this is driven by developers not living in terraces or apartments themselves and not experiencing how awful BCs are.
It is not about the costs. You probably want to get house insurance and maintain your roof anyway.
“set up a body corporate to make your neighbours behave” → this.
Additionally you can figure out the current body corporate rules, but you don’t know how they will change in the future.
Actually, there are lots of terraces being built in Auckland that are freehold fee simple (i.e. not body corporate), and just have a residents’ association. At a guess, I would say more than half of the terraces built recently use this model.
I can see pros and cons to this. Pro: you’re a bit more free to do your own thing. Con: it’s harder for the residents’ association to enforce rules for the complex, e.g. when the terraces are due for a roof replacement or when one owner isn’t paying the fees they’re meant to.
I don’t think there’s much cost difference between the two options; it’s just with a body corp the costs are more visible (maintenance, insurance etc) and with individual ownership they’re hidden (everyone is responsible for their own costs, and many people won’t squirrel away funds for future maintenance).
Is it actually financially sensible to squirrel away funds while you’re still paying off a mortgage?
Yes, we bought a terrace a year ago, fee simple title and no body corporate, but a residents association. So far it’s working well.
You don’t need a residents’ association either if you really don’t want one.
Well you don’t really get to choose if you can’t afford a free-standing house at the moment.
What is the purpose of a residents’ association anyway? I always had the impression that this purpose is enforcing a few rules that are largely symbolic, but meant to convey the message that this is not a “poor” neighbourhood. For example, why else would you ban outdoors clotheslines?
You don’t need a residents’ association or body corporate for terraces, townhouses, or duplexes either either, even if they have a shared driveway. You can literally just put them on freehold titles with an agreement to form a party wall and create an access lot jointly owned and only available for the purposes of access. Starting a resident’s association or body corporate *is not legally required to build attached dwellings*.
I completely agree that resident’s associations are a waste of money.
roeland , My sister lives North of Salt Lake City and her neighbourhood is controlled by a HOA and they want the whole neighbourhood to have green lawns , all cars to be hidden behind a high fence or stored in a large garage anf any washing has to done in a dryer or hung in their garage or as she has a small patio which is hidden from the street there .
But what gets me is the green lawn the HOA requires which is stupid as they live in a desert , and as I said to her and the brother’n’law turn the whole thing into a Zen Garden as the section is cover in rocks of all sizes but the HOA don’t like that idea .
Not always. We bought a new terrace this year (in 2 blocks of 8). No BC thankfully as we got burned on out last place that was part of a BC.
Around me townhouses are developed on sites which previously had 1 or 2 single houses (I assume), as described in this post. On the Auckland GIS viewer they all are in “units”, with a few exceptions which are on “flats”. Other council pages tell “units” are part of a body corporate, while “flats” are in something called a cross-lease.
Why this is I don’t know. It is an empirical observation that all such townhouses must have a body corporate, not a law.
Townhouses on greenfields like Hobsonville Point have a different pattern, with every house being on its own lot. However the post is specifically not about greenfields.
It’s not an empirical observation, it’s an anecdotal observation that you’ve incorrectly extended to all of New Zealand.
There are plenty of brownfields attached dwelling on freehold titles, pretty much any attached dwelling built in the last 20 years in Hamilton is free hold with no body corporate.
That is interesting, but not in Auckland.
I can look around and check the townhouses I know about from walking or riding around my neighbourhood. I don’t have access to aggregated data. It is still useful to figure this out, somehow.
In Birkenhead, it is either body corporate, or a few on cross-lease, every last one.
In Birkdale we have a couple of examples on freehold titles. I think.
In Northcote I think we have freehold titles. However, this is a wholesale demolition of everything, streets and all, and rebuild.
Can you easily get these numbers for Auckland?
Anyone else find those Maroa road ones hideous? The “pop of colour” really doesn’t work well in this case.
It’s the glazing layout. The balance and weight is completely wrong. We need to get used to huge windows or glass doors on street frontage as the Dutch use.
Yep agree, the colours are awful. I like colour but not cheap primary colour tack like that.
Remember these are state houses. It’s better to have the likes of you complaining than Mike Hosking spouting off about how they look better than his house and the amount of money the Government is pissing away on colour consultants.
So what? Because they are state houses they need to use cheap primary colours? I think it’s actually demeaning to the residents.
They should have used a uniform colour that wouldn’t date.
And yes, the more you look at them its the windows to wood ratio that’s the problem. These would have been much nicer with more glazing front and side.
Other than that, its a nice little development. Sympathetic to its surroundings.
Yeah nasty and unnecessary IMHO. Give a weird institutional vibe, like a primary school or a holiday camp.
All good to have some differentiation in the facade, but why not use a normal material like timber shiplap or metal panels, or at least some paint in a tertiary colour?
there’s a pink one there’s a green one there’s a blue one there’s a yellow one
As far as I understand it is much easier to get building consent for a 2 story (or 3 story with some extra restrictions) timber framed building as there is a standards document for those. I believe anything more than that requires design by an engineer and a lot more proof that it meets the building code. There seem to be a massive amount of 2/3 story terraces going up near us, some Kāinga Ora and some private.
Hamish Keith nailed it in a TV documentary when he called such bland blocks ‘filing cabinets’ for people.
Is that meant to be a criticism? When the quote was made, filing cabinets were an almost universal feature of offices. They are utilitarian and bland, sure. But part of being utilitarian offering a lot of utility. Most people want a filing cabinet for $100 not a bespoke architectural filing system for $500. It’s the same with homes, most people don’t care if they are a bit bland as long as they are healthy and safe with the right amount of space for them.
A friend of mine lives in Hastings Sunrise, Vancouver. Their street is primarily 3 story apartment buildings, with underground garages. Each building is set back a little from the street and has a nice garden in front of it, and the streets are tree-lined. The neighbourhood is nice, but not ridiculously affluent. It is only a 20 minute bus trip to the CBD. This is what we need more of in Auckland (and Wellington and Christchurch for that matter).
https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2839268,-123.0627577,3a,75y,83.11h,91.12t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQ7yGiETjhMt4VyG5pnHcVA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
I’d say lots of medium density housing would work to start with, which is common in Europe.
Auckland between Phoenix and Perth? Phoenix has nearly 5 million in its metro area and Perth over two million.
Auckland is at the low end of a mid sized city by international standards.
Interesting post and comments thanks. Yes wouldn’t take that to achieve the density we need for the near future.
What about utilising the 40,000 empty houses and apartments currently lying vacant in Auckland at the moment?
You’d need to subtract all the baches on the fringes of the city, such as Omaha, Snell’s Beach etc to get an accurate figure. In addition all those that are just unoccupied short term due to people being on holiday, rentals in between tenants and people doing renovations etc.
Think you’ve got your numbers wrong. Most of those 800sqm sections have already been subdivided to have double the number of houses. Therefore your intensification targets are higher
And with all this intensification there will be more orange cones in the streets as Watercare and other suppliers of necessary service start to dig the Streets up to upgrade everything , and then there will be all the moaners complaining they can’t go in a straight line to their home .
So to turn a street with 200 hundred houses into one with 220. You need 20 more houses, not 10. And putting a duplex on a 800sqm sections is not going to increase supply at all in most cases. Whilst there are some significant holdings of undeveloped housing new zealand sections here and there, you can’t apply this to the whole of Auckland.
Some sections will not be subdivided, but equally some have 3-4 70s sausage flats, and some later subdivisions will have 4 townhouses already.
I’m about to move into one of those Hobsonville townhouses pictured. I signed the contract in January and it was finished in February. Thanks to Watercare and Auckland Council, I got my CCC and title a week ago – 10 months later! I love the design of Hobsonville, but if we can’t get the bureaucracy right then good denser design doesn’t mean much. We have so much to do on affordability and we need to do them all.
The population of Auckland is not somewhere between Perth and Phoenix.
Perth: 2.1 million.
Phoenix: 4.8 million.
Auckland: 1.7 million.
I used to live in China in a city of 10 million people where most of the residential buildings were 10 storey+ apartment buildings. Luckily we do not have such an extreme population.
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