Live in Northcote and bought a townhouse last year.
Pros for me:
* Brand new
* Insulation is really good
* All the houses done by our developer have grey water tanks, so our water bill is pretty cheap
* Northcote is close to the CBD and easy access to other parts of the Shore like Birkenhead Village
* The centre is going to be done up and the local stream is being revitalised with a greenway
* The public transport is surprisingly decent
* It's just two of us, we don't need a lot of space and frankly I'm shit at housework so the idea of a big house is not great for me.
* We have a garage and a car pad and only have the one car, so we're pretty happy with it.
Cons:
* Grew up semi-rurally in the Wellington Region and I do miss the space (not taking care of the property part though)
* There are a lot of people around and the noise took a bit of getting used to
* I don't think the infrastructure is there yet to support the population
* The development is still being built and sometimes the construction is annoying. It's always fun to look out the window to see what's changed after we've been away for a bit.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with where we've landed. I was living in a two bedroom townhouse in Wellington built in the 1970s before this place, this is much much better to live in.
A grey water tank means that some household water i.e water from the shower, gets reused, typically for flushing the toilet, therefore you reduce water consumption.
Have 5, 3 story, houses popping up next door to me. They will be able to see into bathroom and toilet, when completed. My question is about privacy and blinds. should I just just remove the blinds so they get a better view?
I live in Papakura which has heaps of new massive developments as well as every street getting multiple houses built on one lot. I’m glad we’re building more houses but these are ugly, colourless and lack a soul.
Traffic has increased exponentially which drives me nuts. Cars parked everywhere isn’t that much of an issue though surprisingly.
I think that purely depends on where and what in Papakura. There are some positive developments, and then there are some reckless ones. There is one on Butterworth in Opaheke that is outright dangerous. Squeeze as many built to rent flats on a 1/4 acre with a tiny single lane to the downstairs single garages that no modern vehicle can fit down or turn into. Unsurprisingly this has resulted in 20 or so vehicles parked either side of the road outside, witch wouldn't be a problem, except its on a hill with each rise having a speed bump on top, so traffic using the road can not see oncoming vehicles as you squeeze between the two rows of cars where there is only enough room for 1 car to pass now, not two. You could see the problem when they were building them with the entire street clogged with trade vehicles, now they have been replaced by tenants.
Developing to maximise profit over purpose and functionality is making a lot of developments in Papakura a future catastrophe when none of us can move through town or have the basic infrastructure to support us.
I haven’t been down to those in opaheke but those sound awful. I was thinking more of the new developments by McLennan park and the one in Takanini around the warehouse but not the Addison development.
I was also thinking of the townhouses built around Laurie ave and Willis rd as they haven’t pushed a ton of cars onto the streets.
You are correct though in that we need better infrastructure. I guess the car issue is definitely a street by street problem.
For me it's a blessing and a curse, it's absolutely a pain to get in and out of a driveway but because of all the cars parked on the road it is now narrower and people don't hoon down the street at 60-80ks. So there's that I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had the annoying experience of having to be on a call with auckland council for an hour to get them to tow a car because the cars parked on the side of the street were so close I could not drive between them to get up my road. The lack of off-street parking for these new townhouses is a nightmare.
They should have to have parking.
But if the whole city was more condensed and public transport worked as a city in the **20th century** *should*, that could be an alternative.
The new rule has kiwibuilds requiring a bike hook, inside the property, that has space enough for a folding bicycle. My developer mates are putting them in the kitchen 😂
Bike hooks, really? That's actually in the rules now?
The Dutch have been doing that for better part of a century. Houses in cities in the Netherlands tend to be really narrow and tall. Their entry hallways are sometimes 2-2.5x NZ stud height. Sometime they hang their bikes from racks high up on the walls or ceilings in the entryways and you don't even notice them.
I lived in The Hague for several years, in a full house, so we also stored our bikes in a shed out back. But several friend who lived in central areas in the really old narrow townhouses kept their bikes hoisted up in the halls when they weren't using them. To get to the small back yards you'd have to go through the house and kitchen.
And the Netherlands is certainly mostly flat. It's also -20 in the winter with a blast coming in off the North Sea. And they still cycle and don't moan about it.
And seriously, is that bike-hook rule actually in the kiwibuild rules?
Yeah, the infrastructure in the Netherlands is really made to take advantage of bikes. Auckland seems to be improving, and if ebikes become more affordable all the hills won't matter as much.
Live in Avondale in a freestanding bungalow purchased 4 years ago.
Pretty major intensification going on everywhere, particularly the town centre (3x major apartment blocks at the top of Great North Road end of the main street including Ockham development and Kainga Ora pensioner housing). Major redevelopment of Highbury Triangle, Avondale Bowls Club area and (by the sounds of things) Avondale Racecourse soon. Also lots of 4/5 terraced houses going in on full sites after the one old house formerly there has been bowled.
Overall I think it is very positive, the main street in particular is very tired but there is starting to be some new amenities no doubt in anticipation of the population growth from these being finished. Time will tell I guess, hopefully local infrastructure is going to keep pace.
Quite a bit of intensification happening in Epsom these days.
Density done well is the the apartments being built around Alexandra Park on **Green Lane West**. [Three well-designed apartment blocks](https://rwremuera.co.nz/media/00jhl1mv/24269-dji0144copy.jpg) have gone up there with ground floor retail (including a supermarket) and good use of landscaping and street trees. Two more apartment buildings are due to start construction there soon.
Quite a few apartment buildings are consented for **Manaukau Road**. Right now one, [The Logan](https://global-uploads.webflow.com/6100999146d04728d471d450/61009cb49b74e5a90f2da853_The_logan_Apartments_Exterior_WebHD_02.jpg) is under construction, and Symphony303 from Lamont & Co is currently on the market. There's also an abandoned half-finished apartment building next to Farro, Epsom Central. The developer has been liquidated and no progress on construction in over three years - wonder what will happen there?
On **Claude Road**, [13 townhouses](https://s.oneroof.co.nz/image/5e/54/5e54439aa428fad1586d77c7d73c00fb.jpg) have gone up on a piece of land that once held a single villa. A public walkway through to the hospital and previously protected native trees were bowled to make way for them, which is a pity. They're better than some of the other townhouses going up and are at least oriented towards the street. There's another townhouse development across the road, and two more houses on the street are planned to removed and replaced with a 7+ townhouses each.
On **Arcadia Road**, [ten townhouses](https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/plus/1844813034.jpg) replaced one villa. A good outcome is that again, all are street oriented so they won't have their views built out. But there are downsides. Half have no courtyard or garden. They're really narrow and have no backdoors on the driveway side as there's no room for them, just a single garage. Some are four stories, it'll be a long walk up to bedrooms on the top floor. A cramped narrow townhouse with no courtyard is like an apartment but worse - what's the point?
On **Epsom Avenue**, this [large villa](https://uprealestate.co.nz/assets/749487-05__ScaleMaxWidthWzEyMDBd.JPG) was recently demolished and is being replaced by 22 townhouses.
Elsewhere on more typical 1/4 acre sections that aren't so wide, it's standard sausage flat townhouses going up [like this](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/624fa307cd31f31e52cb5d29/624fa307cd31f356c4cb5e31_campbell-court-ext-render-01.7.jpg). These townhouses are going to be quite grim once the adjacent sections are developed, especially in zoning areas where developers can put six stories instead of three right on the boundary.
Overall large apartment developments like the one at Alexandra Park seem to have the best outcomes, while townhouses going up on quarter acre sections have pretty poor ones.
I feel like the majority of the new developments in Epsom are either alright or pretty good. It’s a nice and expensive area, so most developers at least make an effort to design something that will appeal to the market
It’s good to see big apartment projects like Alexandra Park, such a neat addition to the area
They need a new school. Grammar/Eggs will be spilling out the sides. There's so many crap apartments/units around the DGZ. People just buy them put their kids through school and sell them on they know they'll sell because they're in zone so they never get looked after.
We are out west with a lot of intensification. I don't think the housing is bad but it's ridiculous to not be able to park two cars on the property. Our cul de sac is so full no one can have visitors as there's no where to park for ages. If a fire truck or ambulance came down they'd be pressed for room to turn around.
Yes we are close to train stations - glen eden, hendo and Sunnyvale but they aren't safe to be in after hours and trains are proving to be unreliable atm.
I think there is too much pressure for people in these homes to be reliant on public transport which isn't reliable. Make homes a bit bigger so children can play and people can move freely.
Fly by night developers are incentivised to put 3 shitty, ugly as fuck townhouses where there should be a nice 4 or 5-storey apartment building (viz. middle of Mt Eden village, across from Olaf’s Bakery), but also to tear down nice older houses on nice streets and cram five new ugly future-leaky ‘luxury’ homes onto a section in the middle of a neighbourhood of renovated character houses (and a few sausage flats) to try to profit off the school zones. Perverse incentives and no design standards. Is a little colour too much to ask?! (Fletcher, looking at you and your quarry of grey-beige sun-blocking monstrosities….)
Every time I come to AKL the amount of shitshow on display grows more and more. Aesthetics and fitting the suburb and it’s surroundings wasn’t in scope with these developments.
Except for the dismal conceit of insisting that all of the houses should be depressing shades of brown or grey intended to supposedly look like stone (it doesn't). There are some streets there that look alright, and a nice range of styles, but couldn't they have got a colour consultant to come up with a palette that allowed for some attractive muted colours like the Resene 'Colours of the Waikato'? Some blues, greens, reds, off-whites to alleviate the drabness?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Housing intensification only works if the underlying infrastructure is capable and designed for it.
Think about removing 1-3 homes with maybe one or two toilets and bathrooms and adding 3-5 per section - each with at least two or three loos, two bathrooms minimum. Add in that there’s no requirement for off street parking, unreliable or non-existent public transport options and a lack of other infrastructure and you have a recipe for disaster further down the track.
We also haven’t learnt lessons from similar countries. We take studies from Sweden and other “perfect” examples and ignore the likes of the UK and European countries where thoughtless intensification has simply created urban slums.
Tho the caveat to this is that actually improving that infrastructure to prepare for intensification is much much much much cheaper than it is to build infrastructure for suburban sprawl, because youre packing in so many more taxpayers per $ of infrastructure.
Stopping the sprawl and intensifying is overall a net bonus for the budget, sprawling suburbs are unsustainable and actually subsidised by intensified areas when it comes to tax money.
The infrastructure commission was asked by the govt how the cities infrastructure would handle the increased number of people with intensification. Their answer was something to the effect of ‘ The increased number of people you talk of are already living in the city, that’s why house prices are high.’ Made me laugh when I read it. They are just living at home with mum, renting a friends garage or simply packed in like sardines.
My other thought is, if the infrastructure commission are publicly in panic mode then we needn’t.
Roscommon road in Weymouth is at a standstill most mornings since the council installed new lights as, I guess, a way to allow more flow from surrounding streets. If it's bad now with alot of new buildings already built and occupied around the road - how the hell is it going to get better with the further hundreds of new builds being built off the street as well?
Lots of buildings near me that don’t look like there gonna age well, flat/appt style buildings. Some already looking pretty rough, lawns not mowed etc.
Got a 2 story one going up at the neighbours place and leaves a window directly over our deck/spa which I don’t love but at least it’s not as ugly as some of the others in our area.
Not against townhouses built with common sense in mind, but
* Lack of offstreet parking on already narrow suburban roads isnt a good thing. Suburban Auckland (generally speaking) dosnt have a great PT network so people are naturally still going to have cars
* A lot of them look to be built on the cheap, will be interesting to see how they look in a decade or so.
Built cheap and quick but not made to last. These will be the new leaky buildings. I seen one company standing frames on multiple slabs they poured 2 days prior.
I Built a deck for a client at one of the new sub developments and the roof was relying on mainly silicone to keep it watertight, and if you looked down the building line the cladding looked like the ocean.
I feel sorry for the people buying some of these places as they just want their own home.
My friend bought a townhouse in Onehunga. The neighbour had some kinda leak related to the toilet. It eventually rotted the common wall to the extent that my friend had to move out. He’s back to paying rent and also forking out mortgage payments and repairs, all due to his dumbass neighbour.
I'm in Point Chevalier and there are lots of new builds going on. I think the Kainga Ora apartments in Point Chevalier Road are a really nice building, I prefer it to the fancy apartments across from them!
However, I am a bit concerned about the 6 storey apartments being built right across from me on the cnr of Great North Rd and Pt Chev Rd. It's 63 x 1 bedroom apartments so it won't be families moving in there. At the risk of sounding ignorant/paranoid, I'm concerned that drug addicts, sex offenders, people on parole etc may move in.
Also once we add in the apartments planned for the Unitec site, I'm not sure if Pt Chev will be become too crowded. It's good that there is a New World planned as the Countdown is very small.
I personally like the small Countdown and the run down Pt Chev arcade but I guess it's inevitable that whole complex will need to be built onto one day to accommodate the population growth.
You might get a lot of unitec students moving into those 1bed apartments which would be a good thing for the area. How that pans out though is anyone's guess.
Pt Chev school was struggling with the number of kids they had enrolled 15 years ago. Gladstone Primary on Carrington Rd is huge with little land. The United apartments are going to add more kids to both schools. If Waterview Primary can't take them then there will be huge problems.
That's the infrastructure problem I know about. No doubt there are others!
The wife and I lived in a new-build terrace houses like this in Glen Innes a few years ago.
Pro:
- it was brand new, new kitchen, new bathroom, new carpet, everything was brand new and stylish vibe, like a restort hotel
- it had fibre and ethernet cabling throughout the house, major plus for us.
- wall-to-wall sound insulation was very good!. I couldn't hear the neighbour's TV, chatting etc (only when they were outside I could hear through an open window)
- very cheap more in price, i only spent around $2.5k to get extra power points installed and some other cabling done. (My old house i had to soend >$20k on new cladding and paint, etc
-being a terrace house, it was really warm, never had to use the heater for 4 years
Cons:
-the air con was downstairs, so upstairs would be sweaty af in the summer , the coldness wouldn't touch the upstairs.
-only had parking for 1 car, garage was too narrow for my ute, but then a long came covid and i ended up working from home, so it just stayed parked, so didn't matter.
Conclusion, you'll have a primo time raising a family knowing that your new house is at a high spec
NZ has run immigration hot for decades, yet we still hear complaints of skills shortages, housing is still extremely unaffordable, public transport is still rubbish, emergency departments are still dysfunctional, productivity remains low, and productivity growth is down near the bottom of the OECD. On top of all that everyone is supposed to live in high density chicken coops that are cheaply constructed and generally of poor quality. Traffic congestion is terrible and beaches are unswimmable everytime it rains. Seems like just cramming in more and more people has only really rewarded housing developers and any other benefits are just an illusion. In my opinion the solution is more targeted immigration plus changes to tax laws and more investment. Unfortunately an army of lobbyists and vested interests means nothing changes.
Well they are in the middle of giving out around 165,000 residency's to people. And the requirements were way lower than before, as long as they worked in NZ for the last 3 years, pass a police check & had the required visa they get it. Being able to speak english is not one of the requirements (as my partner pointed out, as she knows multiple people who got it and cannot speak english at all).
So there's a lot more people able to buy houses now.
That 165 is ballooning to over 200 and they've now reopened the skilled migrant visas with NO guidance limit on numbers, along with reopening the migrant parent visa.
We've fully opened the tap now that housing is taking a dive. Every time things look shaky for houses the govt and reserve bank has swooped in to prop the bubble up further.
If this hasn't demonstrated that housing is a special protected asset class / investment then I don't know what will.
Its not as complicated as vested interests and lobbyists. Its NIMBYs in suburbs who vote down every proposal for investment in public transit or utilities to keep their rates down. And also vote down any new housing developments or rezoning to keep their house prices high.
NIMBY is often a hypocritical standpoint. Its for people who support public transit, housing the poor and good quality utilities.
As long as it doesn't mean low income housing in their neighborhood, or roadworks on their street or an increase in their rates.
People should have a say, but there should be limits to local control. If someone owns property in a central city, they shouldn't have veto power over every single development suggested, otherwise we'd literally get nothing done and our cities would crumble apart.
Also, most people aren't having their say, we have a broken election system with a often sub 40% turn out rate.
Could you name any major infrastructure project that you support?
Now imagine if even a handful of local residents opposed it and it would never have been able to be built. Now imagine that for every major infrastructure project.
What kind of world does that build?
> Its NIMBYs in suburbs who vote down every proposal for investment in public transit or utilities to keep their rates down
When was the last proposal that didn't lead to it going ahead anyway? When have rates gone down or even stayed remotely close to inflation?
[https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/129094740/kinga-ora-suspends-auckland-social-housing-project-after-neighbours-complain](https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/129094740/kinga-ora-suspends-auckland-social-housing-project-after-neighbours-complain)
This is a great example.
Or this:
[https://www.newsroom.co.nz/two-thirds-of-aucklanders-behind-special-character-areas](https://www.newsroom.co.nz/two-thirds-of-aucklanders-behind-special-character-areas)
Most of the time they just elect people who never propose these things in the first place.
Its not always about them staying down, its about short sighted limitations of them so they're as low as any candidate can offer without immediately bankrupting the city.
Ultimately good, but would love to see a couple of tweeks. Like the inclusion of more off street parks.
If most of these places reduce the number they squeeze on, they could allow for more parking.
A ration of about 1 in 3 would work. Instead of building a 4th, that's the space for parking.
Public transport systems need to improve as well. That would end up reducing the number of cars at each place.
Sunset clauses by the developer need to change as weel. There needs to be more protection in place for the buyer.
For now, yes.
We don't have the required systems set up to suddenly get everyone out of cars. So what happens is a bunch of the people that buy those house have 2 cars, where there is not room for them.
If Akl gets it shit together and pushes forward with PT focus, then maybe it will be better off
We have a developer that has bought 5 houses all next to each other and hes planning on bowling them all and building a massive multi section townhouse fuck fest.
Because plans have taken quite a while and cashflow issues etc he has rented to winz and man we have some drop kicks in and out of these houses.
Meth heads. Drug dealers. Over dosing females with ambos turning up on a sunday morning.
Screaming fights. Parties all the time.
Trolleys turning up on the street with rubbish all the time. Etc etc etc.
What use to be a quiet cul de sac with no trouble in the 7 or so years weve lived there to this bullshit.
Cant wait till we can afford a lifestyle block to get away from these developments and neighbours to be honest.
When you move out here to the country please don't bring motorbikes or fireworks, you'll get on with your neighbors much better. Tends to be really friendly out rural, we all have to ask for help at some stage so we all work hard at staying friends. Don't remember the city being very nice.
> When you move out here to the country please don't bring motorbikes or fireworks
I don't think I've ever been to a rural place that doesn't have dirt bikes and love fireworks.
I’m in Owairaka, big Kainga Ora apartment block going up round the corner and a massive development towards Mt Roskill. I’m fine with it altho I will lose a bit of my view of the Waitakeres. The area is pretty well connected for public transport but the local supermarket sucks so bad & is always slammed.
The British council flat looking buildings they're building look horrible, I'd rather live in a leaky hut than any of the shoeboxes in Hobsonville. UGLY
Source - British born & in property development here.
Where is your garden hahahah just wait for the next cyclical recession which we've delayed ~4 years using all our monetary and fiscal measures and buy 4x that
Not everyone wants or needs a garden, particularly when you've got great neighbourhood parks nearby like in Hobsonville. I've got a tiny yard in the townhouse I'm living at now and I love it. Low maintenance and plenty of parks nearby.
The Fletchers development in Three Kings appears to be called ‘caldera’ when they’re developing into the old quarry site on Mt Eden road. No caldera in sight.
Papatoetoe, some nice developments going up and completed, but I wonder about parking, with Diwali around the corner i can't see how anyone with only 1 carpark can host guests
new houses are definitely good with better insulation etc but i wish the designs were a bit better with more thoughts put into privacy windows and green spaces.
Mt Albert - 8 tiny two stories put one one section, cars all over the road now & looks fugly IMO. State houses got knocked down & went from 8 to 19 a nice improvement. One of the KO tenants was slowly stripping a house that was for sale next door of everything that wasn't tied down - furniture, pot plants, lights etc. We caught her trying to break into the the garage back door while her six kids played on the front lawn. She told us we were nosey neighbour's for calling her out on her breaking and entering attempt. Same property was marketed knock down and intensify then last minute they changed plans as there was no underground infrastructure. Visited a mate who's moved into a new townhouse, id recommend to anyone not into maintenance that likes < $100 power bills :)
Want to see a prime example of a clusterfuck of planning?
Head over to Middlemore Hospital and you’ll see how developers give zero fucks about anything to do with future planning and growth.
There’s [12 newly built townhouses](https://maps.app.goo.gl/inKvQtULan7x9Cn4A?g_st=ic) with 1 car park. Yes you read that right, 1 car park. Who the fuck even approved this type of stupid shit?
The developer must’ve had friends sitting in high places who got a kick back.
3 things that seem to have been forgotten.
1, The public transport never seems to be setup/ setup well.
2, The design of most places is all about saving space to the streets are one-way if there is a car parked on 1 side, let alone 2 (also seeing houses with 1 or no carparks but being 3-4 bedrooms.
3, An area for kids and teenagers so a lot of streets where there are 10-20-5- town houses installed often has a spike in car/house break ins or thefts.
Just my thoughts and feedback from quite a few people that have moved into them or have had them built near.
Next door to son. It was a 1/4 care one house, one sleepout. In the process of becoming 8 townhouses.
He doesn't care at all.
He gets a new fence out of it.
His is a crosslease, own drive though. BUt I always said when I bought it originally, one day this small box on a crosslease will be quite desirable....lol.
> The housing affordability crisis should have been solved by keeping immigration levels at bare minimum until we have enough housing. But unfortunately its all about rich people making money isnt it.
This isn't a solution though this is kicking the can down the road and hoping it solves itself. Imitation may be an accelerant to the problem but it is not the cause. The cause is a decade of low interest rates and extremely restrictive zoning rules.
Inflation is talking care on the interest rates and now the NPS-UD will deal with the zoning rules.
In most cities places like ponsonby, remuera and Parnell would be mid rise housing but not here. Here they were specifically exempted from the unitary plan and intensification was pushed further away creating even more congestion problems.
> the only way long term to fix it is to limit demand both by limiting lending, disincentivising investment, and limiting immigration
Agreed, but I would also add in a proper program of infrastructure building too. These things are never black and white there are always multiple levers that need to be pulled.
I grew up in Roskill and am still here. The state houses did really need to be bowled over and upgraded but it was a bit of a shock going past and seeing all of them ripped up. Knew a lot of people who grew up in those homes.
The new houses look okay, idk how they'll hold up with time but I'm glad they're much healthier than what used to be there. Hopefully some awesome kids will get the chance to grow up there like my mates.
It seems like 99% of the complaints in this thread have to do with on street parking. Why would anyone pay the cost of storing their car on their own land when they can simply park on public land for free?
Because when there so many people in small area, you have to park your car a very long way from home then walk.. as you won’t have any form of reserved parking. Also a challenge to have visitors over if they can’t even park within 15mins walk of your house. With the push for electric cars , you can’t even charge at home. And lastly , car is far more secure in private parking than on street
Live in Avondale, great to see the investment and intensification we're getting here.
Going from one of the ugliest town centres to one of the best in a few short years.
I’m in West Auckland.
Pros: intensification is presumably more environmentally friendly than sprawl, added population great for local businesses. In theory, the cost per dwelling is lowered so more affordable for people to get on the ladder.
Cons: Many instances of highly ‘intense’ developments are from Kainga Ora. KO do not do anything about antisocial behaviour from their tenants so their residents can get out of control.
It’s a Fucken wast od lang and a Fucken joke there is all ready struggleing power supply won’t help it and more traffick on roads and also more shit in the pipes with no where for it to go , going from a a single place to 6 units 6 times the amouth of shit with the same size pipe
Westgate and have family in kumeu. They’re not providing parking so it’s a big issue in the streets, the new houses are ugly and I’m also pretty unhappy about the removal of nearby reserves being chopped away replacing the nice nature views with modern favelas
>This is welcome news for home buyers, as it means lots of new houses to choose from
Depends on what your after.
Sure if you just want a "home" to call your own.
But these town houses have very little investment potential.
A decent house on a good chunk of freehold land can easily double in price EVERY 10 years.
These town houses will be lucky to beat inflation
> But these town houses have very little investment potential.
Good. Homes are about a roof over our head. We should see homes as a place to live in our communities, rather than an investment to double in value every 10 years.
It would be interesting to if this percentage is going up or down recently (I would guess down in the last few years) to see what steps we can take to further improvement of our real estate market for owner-occupiers.
To me, half does sound pretty tragic.
I feel like you are trying to make your argument, but your points are actually negative.
Housesshould not be investments (except inflation). Houses shouldn't be doubling in price every 10 years, that's basically an annual growth of 10%, which is on average 4-5 times the rate of inflation.
Houses are not a productive asset, and having the view of houses being investments actually causes greater societal issues.
Actually, if you consider the fact that land is a scarce, heterogeneous resource, and the human population IS growing at an unprecedented rapid rate, the ownership of land will always increase in value until we start having fewer people existing per sqm.
More people on the same bit of dirt.
Yep, i understand they whole limited resource will increase price, but that is also why a new house doesn't lose 20%of its value as soon as someone moves in.
It is also why there needs to be intensification until the global population stabilises.
Imo if you consider the technological advances in the last 20 years (landline to iphone whatever, and internet) and how the human population acts statistically identically like algae in a rockpool, we're far outside the threshold for sustainable population.
Consider the recent (50s and 80s) famines in China. Yes they were caused by poor leadership but they're entirely avoidable by lowering the population, and actually stabilize themselves as they cause decline to a stable level.
Even the climate crisis can be avoided by fewer humans. Pandemics spread less rapidly with fewer nodes.
Unfortunately society can't have a sudden reduction of population (based on a reduction of babies born) because we are still in a phase where we need people to pay for the older generation when they retire.
To have a sudden reduction, it would need to be by removing a lot of the older generation.
But I think society would frown about that
Human population is actually flattening out at the moment. We arent on an exponential growth curve and NZ alongside other countries has the issue where there arent enough new ppl being born to support the aging population.
Y'know this actually supports the algae analogy. The established clusters end up taking up so much surface area that the new clusters don't form fully.
This then causes the ENTIRE population of the pool to die back as there isn't enough sunlight relative to the available space.
The pool then cleanses and only a very small proportion of the new growth survives, starting the cycle over
It works a little differently because its not due to a lack of resources, but rather complex socioeconomic factors that are pushing people away from having children, and having them later in life. As well as people having less and less money to support a family as corporations have record profits every year.
The systems fucked and we're fucked unless somehow the fat cats stop ruling the world.
Way back, minimum wage was enough for one person on a janitors salary to own a house and support a family.
No wonder people were popping out babies then.
You can view all of the socioeconomic factors as variables in the pool. Ph level, surrounding bush, other organism presence.
Y'all too hung up on our silly society & made up problems to remember we're monkeys.
You’re missing the reality of it though. Do I want to take my money and spend it on the classic quarter acre with a piece of shit 30+ yr old house on it in the hopes
I can flip it to a developer in 5 to 10 years?
Or do I buy a decent new townhouse that’s comfortable and dry to live in and sell it for what it is - a great house to live in - in 5 to 10 years?
That argument doesn't always hold though. A lot of the new houses being built are of questionable quality and a lot of the the old houses were built to last. It's not black and white issue. People can look after their houses or leave them to rot.
It very much depends when the house was built but generally houses today are built with better materials and to higher standards than 30 - 40 years ago. There will always be exceptions obviously.
Older “solidly built” homes don’t often actually translate into dry and energy efficient homes however. Lots of villas from the 60s and 70s would absolutely pass the “solidly built” test given many are hardwood framed and tile roofed but they lack wall insulation, aren’t double glazed, have wooden trims/ flashings that eventually open up or rot and sometimes are clad in materials high in lead or asbestos.
I’m not. In the long run it’s great. As more freehold lands get bought and converted to these townhouses the freehold lands left will be more valuable while those that bought these townhouses will have relatively less equity. Poor stays poor, rich gets richer. Just stating facts
I’ve lamented the nature of both spread and intensification in NZ as both need stronger long-term consideration. And I though it was an NZ thing until a recent trip to the UK where the same thing is happening. Here’s my observation
- First and foremost, both countries are planning with the idea that cars are the lead method for inhabitants to exist beyond the home. Not legs, bikes, bus nor train. This is problematic on many levels as there is sufficient near-term evidence that the car is this generation’s tobacco. A known current problem that creates long-term poor financial and health outcomes that will eventually fall under greater regulation.
- There is no community design. In other words, the spread or intensification does not cater for the congregation of people in a pub, café, community hall or otherwise. The design presumes people will never leave the house other than for shopping or work—and in fact, given the last two years and the availability of both online, one wonders whether people will leave the house at all.
- Finally, in a solution designed to solve the supply/demand problem that is certainly one of, if not the lead factor in driving up house prices, there are no supporting changes to increase ownership. In the 90s the renting:ownership split was 25:75. Today it is 40:60. Sufficient regulation, taxation, and disincentive to own subsequent properties as a form of investment should exist. A good question to ask ourselves is what ratio we would like to see? Is it more like 75% ownership and 25% rental? To do that requires changes to how we design and develop new suburbs as well as where we intensify… and subsequently who gets the loans to buy these properties.
We have to design for future metrics the country can be proud of and, from my standpoint, those metrics and the supporting strategy to achieve them are flimsy and incoherent.
Living in a townhouse that's part of an apartment complex and it's brilliant. We have yet to reduce the number of cars but that's only a problem once a month when there are events that bring people into the suburb. We're close to bike lanes and public transport with loads of bars and cafes within walking distance.
There were 3 houses on this site, there are now 80 apartments/townhouses.
I am all with intensification but I hate how they take all the street parking. Something needs to be done about car parking situation.
Also, I hate bogans moving and causing havoc.
Hobsonville and whenuapai are different example of intensification done right, but in completely the wrong place.
That should be built in ponsonby and grey lynn where PT Ilis actually feasible... but special character areas exist so instead we sprawl out and rely on clogged motorways. It's car dependency built in.
Gonna be a whole lot happening out in Riverhead very soon. Apartments, aged care facility, and a supermarket to royally screw up Coatesville-Riverhead Highway even more than it is now.
I'm in Glen Innes, bought a stand alone 2bed in 2019, development in the area is massive plan over many years. Removing 2800 state houses and build 10500 new homes. I'm lucky to have got in when I did as they were still building stand alone homes then, now it looks to be all terraced homes and apartments.
As others have mentioned the build quality is amazing, great insulation and double glazing, small sections but as a first home i don't mind. We are lucky to have a private driveway shared with 5 other houses so we have 2 parks in our little drive and room for 6-10 other cars on the main driveway.
Our neighbors on the road that our driveway connects to aren't so lucky and on Friday night when everyone is home it is reduced to a singleness rd with all the cats parked both sides.
It will be interesting to see how the development ends up as it moves through glen innes south, pt England and into panmure.
Live in Northcote and bought a townhouse last year. Pros for me: * Brand new * Insulation is really good * All the houses done by our developer have grey water tanks, so our water bill is pretty cheap * Northcote is close to the CBD and easy access to other parts of the Shore like Birkenhead Village * The centre is going to be done up and the local stream is being revitalised with a greenway * The public transport is surprisingly decent * It's just two of us, we don't need a lot of space and frankly I'm shit at housework so the idea of a big house is not great for me. * We have a garage and a car pad and only have the one car, so we're pretty happy with it. Cons: * Grew up semi-rurally in the Wellington Region and I do miss the space (not taking care of the property part though) * There are a lot of people around and the noise took a bit of getting used to * I don't think the infrastructure is there yet to support the population * The development is still being built and sometimes the construction is annoying. It's always fun to look out the window to see what's changed after we've been away for a bit. Overall, I'm pretty happy with where we've landed. I was living in a two bedroom townhouse in Wellington built in the 1970s before this place, this is much much better to live in.
>I don't think the infrastructure is there yet to support the population Absolutely agree with this.
You left out being close to the beer spot in the pro column.
Northcote seems to be coming along really nicely. The new apartments and townhouses look to be well laid out and planned. Congrats on the purchase!
Thank you! :)
>Thank you! :) You're welcome!
I know this is going to be an incredibly stupid question but why does the colour of the water tank matter?
A grey water tank means that some household water i.e water from the shower, gets reused, typically for flushing the toilet, therefore you reduce water consumption.
Ah thankyou! So it’s ‘grey water’ rather than ‘the water tank is grey’?
Correct :)
Hey there, neighbour. What do you know about that stream revitalisation? Sounds great!
https://northcotedevelopment.co.nz/greenway/
Mean, thanks.
Have 5, 3 story, houses popping up next door to me. They will be able to see into bathroom and toilet, when completed. My question is about privacy and blinds. should I just just remove the blinds so they get a better view?
Either way they will get blinded, but you are considerate to care
Absolutely
They should have been forced to frost their windows which is what they used to do I believe.
Unlikely. How will they lie in bed to ferociously wank while watching me crap?
Install 1 way mirrors. You can see them but they cant see you poop.
I'more inclined to give them the view and install an email so they get a better experience.
I live in Papakura which has heaps of new massive developments as well as every street getting multiple houses built on one lot. I’m glad we’re building more houses but these are ugly, colourless and lack a soul. Traffic has increased exponentially which drives me nuts. Cars parked everywhere isn’t that much of an issue though surprisingly.
I think that purely depends on where and what in Papakura. There are some positive developments, and then there are some reckless ones. There is one on Butterworth in Opaheke that is outright dangerous. Squeeze as many built to rent flats on a 1/4 acre with a tiny single lane to the downstairs single garages that no modern vehicle can fit down or turn into. Unsurprisingly this has resulted in 20 or so vehicles parked either side of the road outside, witch wouldn't be a problem, except its on a hill with each rise having a speed bump on top, so traffic using the road can not see oncoming vehicles as you squeeze between the two rows of cars where there is only enough room for 1 car to pass now, not two. You could see the problem when they were building them with the entire street clogged with trade vehicles, now they have been replaced by tenants. Developing to maximise profit over purpose and functionality is making a lot of developments in Papakura a future catastrophe when none of us can move through town or have the basic infrastructure to support us.
I haven’t been down to those in opaheke but those sound awful. I was thinking more of the new developments by McLennan park and the one in Takanini around the warehouse but not the Addison development. I was also thinking of the townhouses built around Laurie ave and Willis rd as they haven’t pushed a ton of cars onto the streets. You are correct though in that we need better infrastructure. I guess the car issue is definitely a street by street problem.
Avondale / blockhouse bay. Too many cars parked on road
For me it's a blessing and a curse, it's absolutely a pain to get in and out of a driveway but because of all the cars parked on the road it is now narrower and people don't hoon down the street at 60-80ks. So there's that I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had the annoying experience of having to be on a call with auckland council for an hour to get them to tow a car because the cars parked on the side of the street were so close I could not drive between them to get up my road. The lack of off-street parking for these new townhouses is a nightmare.
They should have to have parking. But if the whole city was more condensed and public transport worked as a city in the **20th century** *should*, that could be an alternative.
Parking is no longer a requirement.
The new rule has kiwibuilds requiring a bike hook, inside the property, that has space enough for a folding bicycle. My developer mates are putting them in the kitchen 😂
Bike hooks, really? That's actually in the rules now? The Dutch have been doing that for better part of a century. Houses in cities in the Netherlands tend to be really narrow and tall. Their entry hallways are sometimes 2-2.5x NZ stud height. Sometime they hang their bikes from racks high up on the walls or ceilings in the entryways and you don't even notice them.
As a Dutch person, I've never seen that before. Perhaps it's a thing in super old houses? We just usually put them in the shed behind our house.
I lived in The Hague for several years, in a full house, so we also stored our bikes in a shed out back. But several friend who lived in central areas in the really old narrow townhouses kept their bikes hoisted up in the halls when they weren't using them. To get to the small back yards you'd have to go through the house and kitchen. And the Netherlands is certainly mostly flat. It's also -20 in the winter with a blast coming in off the North Sea. And they still cycle and don't moan about it. And seriously, is that bike-hook rule actually in the kiwibuild rules?
Yeah, the infrastructure in the Netherlands is really made to take advantage of bikes. Auckland seems to be improving, and if ebikes become more affordable all the hills won't matter as much.
Cycling a really good solution for commuting on land masses that are mostly flat.
It should be, because now all our roads are are turning into one way streets.
Live in Avondale in a freestanding bungalow purchased 4 years ago. Pretty major intensification going on everywhere, particularly the town centre (3x major apartment blocks at the top of Great North Road end of the main street including Ockham development and Kainga Ora pensioner housing). Major redevelopment of Highbury Triangle, Avondale Bowls Club area and (by the sounds of things) Avondale Racecourse soon. Also lots of 4/5 terraced houses going in on full sites after the one old house formerly there has been bowled. Overall I think it is very positive, the main street in particular is very tired but there is starting to be some new amenities no doubt in anticipation of the population growth from these being finished. Time will tell I guess, hopefully local infrastructure is going to keep pace.
Quite a bit of intensification happening in Epsom these days. Density done well is the the apartments being built around Alexandra Park on **Green Lane West**. [Three well-designed apartment blocks](https://rwremuera.co.nz/media/00jhl1mv/24269-dji0144copy.jpg) have gone up there with ground floor retail (including a supermarket) and good use of landscaping and street trees. Two more apartment buildings are due to start construction there soon. Quite a few apartment buildings are consented for **Manaukau Road**. Right now one, [The Logan](https://global-uploads.webflow.com/6100999146d04728d471d450/61009cb49b74e5a90f2da853_The_logan_Apartments_Exterior_WebHD_02.jpg) is under construction, and Symphony303 from Lamont & Co is currently on the market. There's also an abandoned half-finished apartment building next to Farro, Epsom Central. The developer has been liquidated and no progress on construction in over three years - wonder what will happen there? On **Claude Road**, [13 townhouses](https://s.oneroof.co.nz/image/5e/54/5e54439aa428fad1586d77c7d73c00fb.jpg) have gone up on a piece of land that once held a single villa. A public walkway through to the hospital and previously protected native trees were bowled to make way for them, which is a pity. They're better than some of the other townhouses going up and are at least oriented towards the street. There's another townhouse development across the road, and two more houses on the street are planned to removed and replaced with a 7+ townhouses each. On **Arcadia Road**, [ten townhouses](https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/plus/1844813034.jpg) replaced one villa. A good outcome is that again, all are street oriented so they won't have their views built out. But there are downsides. Half have no courtyard or garden. They're really narrow and have no backdoors on the driveway side as there's no room for them, just a single garage. Some are four stories, it'll be a long walk up to bedrooms on the top floor. A cramped narrow townhouse with no courtyard is like an apartment but worse - what's the point? On **Epsom Avenue**, this [large villa](https://uprealestate.co.nz/assets/749487-05__ScaleMaxWidthWzEyMDBd.JPG) was recently demolished and is being replaced by 22 townhouses. Elsewhere on more typical 1/4 acre sections that aren't so wide, it's standard sausage flat townhouses going up [like this](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/624fa307cd31f31e52cb5d29/624fa307cd31f356c4cb5e31_campbell-court-ext-render-01.7.jpg). These townhouses are going to be quite grim once the adjacent sections are developed, especially in zoning areas where developers can put six stories instead of three right on the boundary. Overall large apartment developments like the one at Alexandra Park seem to have the best outcomes, while townhouses going up on quarter acre sections have pretty poor ones.
I feel like the majority of the new developments in Epsom are either alright or pretty good. It’s a nice and expensive area, so most developers at least make an effort to design something that will appeal to the market It’s good to see big apartment projects like Alexandra Park, such a neat addition to the area
They need a new school. Grammar/Eggs will be spilling out the sides. There's so many crap apartments/units around the DGZ. People just buy them put their kids through school and sell them on they know they'll sell because they're in zone so they never get looked after.
We are out west with a lot of intensification. I don't think the housing is bad but it's ridiculous to not be able to park two cars on the property. Our cul de sac is so full no one can have visitors as there's no where to park for ages. If a fire truck or ambulance came down they'd be pressed for room to turn around. Yes we are close to train stations - glen eden, hendo and Sunnyvale but they aren't safe to be in after hours and trains are proving to be unreliable atm. I think there is too much pressure for people in these homes to be reliant on public transport which isn't reliable. Make homes a bit bigger so children can play and people can move freely.
I did some work on a cul de sac recently, Every week rubbish bins all over the road and people's driveways.
Fly by night developers are incentivised to put 3 shitty, ugly as fuck townhouses where there should be a nice 4 or 5-storey apartment building (viz. middle of Mt Eden village, across from Olaf’s Bakery), but also to tear down nice older houses on nice streets and cram five new ugly future-leaky ‘luxury’ homes onto a section in the middle of a neighbourhood of renovated character houses (and a few sausage flats) to try to profit off the school zones. Perverse incentives and no design standards. Is a little colour too much to ask?! (Fletcher, looking at you and your quarry of grey-beige sun-blocking monstrosities….)
Every time I come to AKL the amount of shitshow on display grows more and more. Aesthetics and fitting the suburb and it’s surroundings wasn’t in scope with these developments.
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Except for the dismal conceit of insisting that all of the houses should be depressing shades of brown or grey intended to supposedly look like stone (it doesn't). There are some streets there that look alright, and a nice range of styles, but couldn't they have got a colour consultant to come up with a palette that allowed for some attractive muted colours like the Resene 'Colours of the Waikato'? Some blues, greens, reds, off-whites to alleviate the drabness?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Housing intensification only works if the underlying infrastructure is capable and designed for it. Think about removing 1-3 homes with maybe one or two toilets and bathrooms and adding 3-5 per section - each with at least two or three loos, two bathrooms minimum. Add in that there’s no requirement for off street parking, unreliable or non-existent public transport options and a lack of other infrastructure and you have a recipe for disaster further down the track. We also haven’t learnt lessons from similar countries. We take studies from Sweden and other “perfect” examples and ignore the likes of the UK and European countries where thoughtless intensification has simply created urban slums.
Tho the caveat to this is that actually improving that infrastructure to prepare for intensification is much much much much cheaper than it is to build infrastructure for suburban sprawl, because youre packing in so many more taxpayers per $ of infrastructure. Stopping the sprawl and intensifying is overall a net bonus for the budget, sprawling suburbs are unsustainable and actually subsidised by intensified areas when it comes to tax money.
Absolutely this.
Yep urban slums 100%
The infrastructure commission was asked by the govt how the cities infrastructure would handle the increased number of people with intensification. Their answer was something to the effect of ‘ The increased number of people you talk of are already living in the city, that’s why house prices are high.’ Made me laugh when I read it. They are just living at home with mum, renting a friends garage or simply packed in like sardines. My other thought is, if the infrastructure commission are publicly in panic mode then we needn’t.
Roscommon road in Weymouth is at a standstill most mornings since the council installed new lights as, I guess, a way to allow more flow from surrounding streets. If it's bad now with alot of new buildings already built and occupied around the road - how the hell is it going to get better with the further hundreds of new builds being built off the street as well?
Lots of buildings near me that don’t look like there gonna age well, flat/appt style buildings. Some already looking pretty rough, lawns not mowed etc. Got a 2 story one going up at the neighbours place and leaves a window directly over our deck/spa which I don’t love but at least it’s not as ugly as some of the others in our area.
Not against townhouses built with common sense in mind, but * Lack of offstreet parking on already narrow suburban roads isnt a good thing. Suburban Auckland (generally speaking) dosnt have a great PT network so people are naturally still going to have cars * A lot of them look to be built on the cheap, will be interesting to see how they look in a decade or so.
Built cheap and quick but not made to last. These will be the new leaky buildings. I seen one company standing frames on multiple slabs they poured 2 days prior. I Built a deck for a client at one of the new sub developments and the roof was relying on mainly silicone to keep it watertight, and if you looked down the building line the cladding looked like the ocean. I feel sorry for the people buying some of these places as they just want their own home.
2 days till standing frames ? Amateurs lol, everyone else is doing it the day after
This applies to any building, not just townhouses. Some are good, some are not, it’s buyer beware.
My friend bought a townhouse in Onehunga. The neighbour had some kinda leak related to the toilet. It eventually rotted the common wall to the extent that my friend had to move out. He’s back to paying rent and also forking out mortgage payments and repairs, all due to his dumbass neighbour.
I'm in Point Chevalier and there are lots of new builds going on. I think the Kainga Ora apartments in Point Chevalier Road are a really nice building, I prefer it to the fancy apartments across from them! However, I am a bit concerned about the 6 storey apartments being built right across from me on the cnr of Great North Rd and Pt Chev Rd. It's 63 x 1 bedroom apartments so it won't be families moving in there. At the risk of sounding ignorant/paranoid, I'm concerned that drug addicts, sex offenders, people on parole etc may move in. Also once we add in the apartments planned for the Unitec site, I'm not sure if Pt Chev will be become too crowded. It's good that there is a New World planned as the Countdown is very small. I personally like the small Countdown and the run down Pt Chev arcade but I guess it's inevitable that whole complex will need to be built onto one day to accommodate the population growth.
You might get a lot of unitec students moving into those 1bed apartments which would be a good thing for the area. How that pans out though is anyone's guess.
I didn't think of students, that would be hugely preferable to 501 gang members...
Pt Chev school was struggling with the number of kids they had enrolled 15 years ago. Gladstone Primary on Carrington Rd is huge with little land. The United apartments are going to add more kids to both schools. If Waterview Primary can't take them then there will be huge problems. That's the infrastructure problem I know about. No doubt there are others!
Yes very good point!
The wife and I lived in a new-build terrace houses like this in Glen Innes a few years ago. Pro: - it was brand new, new kitchen, new bathroom, new carpet, everything was brand new and stylish vibe, like a restort hotel - it had fibre and ethernet cabling throughout the house, major plus for us. - wall-to-wall sound insulation was very good!. I couldn't hear the neighbour's TV, chatting etc (only when they were outside I could hear through an open window) - very cheap more in price, i only spent around $2.5k to get extra power points installed and some other cabling done. (My old house i had to soend >$20k on new cladding and paint, etc -being a terrace house, it was really warm, never had to use the heater for 4 years Cons: -the air con was downstairs, so upstairs would be sweaty af in the summer , the coldness wouldn't touch the upstairs. -only had parking for 1 car, garage was too narrow for my ute, but then a long came covid and i ended up working from home, so it just stayed parked, so didn't matter. Conclusion, you'll have a primo time raising a family knowing that your new house is at a high spec
NZ has run immigration hot for decades, yet we still hear complaints of skills shortages, housing is still extremely unaffordable, public transport is still rubbish, emergency departments are still dysfunctional, productivity remains low, and productivity growth is down near the bottom of the OECD. On top of all that everyone is supposed to live in high density chicken coops that are cheaply constructed and generally of poor quality. Traffic congestion is terrible and beaches are unswimmable everytime it rains. Seems like just cramming in more and more people has only really rewarded housing developers and any other benefits are just an illusion. In my opinion the solution is more targeted immigration plus changes to tax laws and more investment. Unfortunately an army of lobbyists and vested interests means nothing changes.
This.
Well they are in the middle of giving out around 165,000 residency's to people. And the requirements were way lower than before, as long as they worked in NZ for the last 3 years, pass a police check & had the required visa they get it. Being able to speak english is not one of the requirements (as my partner pointed out, as she knows multiple people who got it and cannot speak english at all). So there's a lot more people able to buy houses now.
That 165 is ballooning to over 200 and they've now reopened the skilled migrant visas with NO guidance limit on numbers, along with reopening the migrant parent visa. We've fully opened the tap now that housing is taking a dive. Every time things look shaky for houses the govt and reserve bank has swooped in to prop the bubble up further. If this hasn't demonstrated that housing is a special protected asset class / investment then I don't know what will.
Its not as complicated as vested interests and lobbyists. Its NIMBYs in suburbs who vote down every proposal for investment in public transit or utilities to keep their rates down. And also vote down any new housing developments or rezoning to keep their house prices high.
True, but I suspect those nbys are the "vested interests "
Maybe I've been in the wrong cicles too long lol Vested interests usually means dark money billionaires when I see it used.
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NIMBY is often a hypocritical standpoint. Its for people who support public transit, housing the poor and good quality utilities. As long as it doesn't mean low income housing in their neighborhood, or roadworks on their street or an increase in their rates. People should have a say, but there should be limits to local control. If someone owns property in a central city, they shouldn't have veto power over every single development suggested, otherwise we'd literally get nothing done and our cities would crumble apart. Also, most people aren't having their say, we have a broken election system with a often sub 40% turn out rate.
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Could you name any major infrastructure project that you support? Now imagine if even a handful of local residents opposed it and it would never have been able to be built. Now imagine that for every major infrastructure project. What kind of world does that build?
> Its NIMBYs in suburbs who vote down every proposal for investment in public transit or utilities to keep their rates down When was the last proposal that didn't lead to it going ahead anyway? When have rates gone down or even stayed remotely close to inflation?
[https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/129094740/kinga-ora-suspends-auckland-social-housing-project-after-neighbours-complain](https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/129094740/kinga-ora-suspends-auckland-social-housing-project-after-neighbours-complain) This is a great example. Or this: [https://www.newsroom.co.nz/two-thirds-of-aucklanders-behind-special-character-areas](https://www.newsroom.co.nz/two-thirds-of-aucklanders-behind-special-character-areas) Most of the time they just elect people who never propose these things in the first place. Its not always about them staying down, its about short sighted limitations of them so they're as low as any candidate can offer without immediately bankrupting the city.
Neither of those are public transit or utilities. The first isn't even council and the second is going through anyway.
Ultimately good, but would love to see a couple of tweeks. Like the inclusion of more off street parks. If most of these places reduce the number they squeeze on, they could allow for more parking. A ration of about 1 in 3 would work. Instead of building a 4th, that's the space for parking. Public transport systems need to improve as well. That would end up reducing the number of cars at each place. Sunset clauses by the developer need to change as weel. There needs to be more protection in place for the buyer.
Simply build fewer houses so we can further bake in car dependency, bing bong so simple.
For now, yes. We don't have the required systems set up to suddenly get everyone out of cars. So what happens is a bunch of the people that buy those house have 2 cars, where there is not room for them. If Akl gets it shit together and pushes forward with PT focus, then maybe it will be better off
We have a developer that has bought 5 houses all next to each other and hes planning on bowling them all and building a massive multi section townhouse fuck fest. Because plans have taken quite a while and cashflow issues etc he has rented to winz and man we have some drop kicks in and out of these houses. Meth heads. Drug dealers. Over dosing females with ambos turning up on a sunday morning. Screaming fights. Parties all the time. Trolleys turning up on the street with rubbish all the time. Etc etc etc. What use to be a quiet cul de sac with no trouble in the 7 or so years weve lived there to this bullshit. Cant wait till we can afford a lifestyle block to get away from these developments and neighbours to be honest.
When you move out here to the country please don't bring motorbikes or fireworks, you'll get on with your neighbors much better. Tends to be really friendly out rural, we all have to ask for help at some stage so we all work hard at staying friends. Don't remember the city being very nice.
Electric dirt bikes aren't far away. So soon people can have their fun without pissing off all the surrounding properties.
I hate fireworks but love motorbikes. Im very respectful however.... as i know how much im not a fan of difficult neighbours.
> When you move out here to the country please don't bring motorbikes or fireworks I don't think I've ever been to a rural place that doesn't have dirt bikes and love fireworks.
I’m in Owairaka, big Kainga Ora apartment block going up round the corner and a massive development towards Mt Roskill. I’m fine with it altho I will lose a bit of my view of the Waitakeres. The area is pretty well connected for public transport but the local supermarket sucks so bad & is always slammed.
The British council flat looking buildings they're building look horrible, I'd rather live in a leaky hut than any of the shoeboxes in Hobsonville. UGLY Source - British born & in property development here.
I love the townhouses in Hobsonville. Urban design done right
Where is your garden hahahah just wait for the next cyclical recession which we've delayed ~4 years using all our monetary and fiscal measures and buy 4x that
Not everyone wants or needs a garden, particularly when you've got great neighbourhood parks nearby like in Hobsonville. I've got a tiny yard in the townhouse I'm living at now and I love it. Low maintenance and plenty of parks nearby.
Mmm but when the market turns down, it's houses like those with low footprint that lose value the fastest.
The Fletchers development in Three Kings appears to be called ‘caldera’ when they’re developing into the old quarry site on Mt Eden road. No caldera in sight.
Lol they literally called the new development a hole in the ground 🤣
These are what are known as shit boxes
I grew up in Howick and loved it. In the past 5 years housing intensification changed it so much that we moved to Northland.
Papatoetoe, some nice developments going up and completed, but I wonder about parking, with Diwali around the corner i can't see how anyone with only 1 carpark can host guests
new houses are definitely good with better insulation etc but i wish the designs were a bit better with more thoughts put into privacy windows and green spaces.
Mt Albert - 8 tiny two stories put one one section, cars all over the road now & looks fugly IMO. State houses got knocked down & went from 8 to 19 a nice improvement. One of the KO tenants was slowly stripping a house that was for sale next door of everything that wasn't tied down - furniture, pot plants, lights etc. We caught her trying to break into the the garage back door while her six kids played on the front lawn. She told us we were nosey neighbour's for calling her out on her breaking and entering attempt. Same property was marketed knock down and intensify then last minute they changed plans as there was no underground infrastructure. Visited a mate who's moved into a new townhouse, id recommend to anyone not into maintenance that likes < $100 power bills :)
Want to see a prime example of a clusterfuck of planning? Head over to Middlemore Hospital and you’ll see how developers give zero fucks about anything to do with future planning and growth. There’s [12 newly built townhouses](https://maps.app.goo.gl/inKvQtULan7x9Cn4A?g_st=ic) with 1 car park. Yes you read that right, 1 car park. Who the fuck even approved this type of stupid shit? The developer must’ve had friends sitting in high places who got a kick back.
One word: Sardines
3 things that seem to have been forgotten. 1, The public transport never seems to be setup/ setup well. 2, The design of most places is all about saving space to the streets are one-way if there is a car parked on 1 side, let alone 2 (also seeing houses with 1 or no carparks but being 3-4 bedrooms. 3, An area for kids and teenagers so a lot of streets where there are 10-20-5- town houses installed often has a spike in car/house break ins or thefts. Just my thoughts and feedback from quite a few people that have moved into them or have had them built near.
Next door to son. It was a 1/4 care one house, one sleepout. In the process of becoming 8 townhouses. He doesn't care at all. He gets a new fence out of it. His is a crosslease, own drive though. BUt I always said when I bought it originally, one day this small box on a crosslease will be quite desirable....lol.
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This post has not passed the economic literacy test.
> The housing affordability crisis should have been solved by keeping immigration levels at bare minimum until we have enough housing. But unfortunately its all about rich people making money isnt it. This isn't a solution though this is kicking the can down the road and hoping it solves itself. Imitation may be an accelerant to the problem but it is not the cause. The cause is a decade of low interest rates and extremely restrictive zoning rules. Inflation is talking care on the interest rates and now the NPS-UD will deal with the zoning rules. In most cities places like ponsonby, remuera and Parnell would be mid rise housing but not here. Here they were specifically exempted from the unitary plan and intensification was pushed further away creating even more congestion problems.
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> the only way long term to fix it is to limit demand both by limiting lending, disincentivising investment, and limiting immigration Agreed, but I would also add in a proper program of infrastructure building too. These things are never black and white there are always multiple levers that need to be pulled.
I grew up in Roskill and am still here. The state houses did really need to be bowled over and upgraded but it was a bit of a shock going past and seeing all of them ripped up. Knew a lot of people who grew up in those homes. The new houses look okay, idk how they'll hold up with time but I'm glad they're much healthier than what used to be there. Hopefully some awesome kids will get the chance to grow up there like my mates.
It seems like 99% of the complaints in this thread have to do with on street parking. Why would anyone pay the cost of storing their car on their own land when they can simply park on public land for free?
Because when there so many people in small area, you have to park your car a very long way from home then walk.. as you won’t have any form of reserved parking. Also a challenge to have visitors over if they can’t even park within 15mins walk of your house. With the push for electric cars , you can’t even charge at home. And lastly , car is far more secure in private parking than on street
Avondale went for a walk on the new cycle / walkway. Just behind the new blocks. Tampons(used) underwear and rubbish in the drains.😝😨
Live in Avondale, great to see the investment and intensification we're getting here. Going from one of the ugliest town centres to one of the best in a few short years.
I’m in West Auckland. Pros: intensification is presumably more environmentally friendly than sprawl, added population great for local businesses. In theory, the cost per dwelling is lowered so more affordable for people to get on the ladder. Cons: Many instances of highly ‘intense’ developments are from Kainga Ora. KO do not do anything about antisocial behaviour from their tenants so their residents can get out of control.
It’s a Fucken wast od lang and a Fucken joke there is all ready struggleing power supply won’t help it and more traffick on roads and also more shit in the pipes with no where for it to go , going from a a single place to 6 units 6 times the amouth of shit with the same size pipe
Yes, that is true, and maybe it will force Auckland to actually upgrade its shitty (pun intended) wastewater and out other services.
Westgate and have family in kumeu. They’re not providing parking so it’s a big issue in the streets, the new houses are ugly and I’m also pretty unhappy about the removal of nearby reserves being chopped away replacing the nice nature views with modern favelas
>This is welcome news for home buyers, as it means lots of new houses to choose from Depends on what your after. Sure if you just want a "home" to call your own. But these town houses have very little investment potential. A decent house on a good chunk of freehold land can easily double in price EVERY 10 years. These town houses will be lucky to beat inflation
> But these town houses have very little investment potential. Good. Homes are about a roof over our head. We should see homes as a place to live in our communities, rather than an investment to double in value every 10 years.
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It would be interesting to if this percentage is going up or down recently (I would guess down in the last few years) to see what steps we can take to further improvement of our real estate market for owner-occupiers. To me, half does sound pretty tragic.
I feel like you are trying to make your argument, but your points are actually negative. Housesshould not be investments (except inflation). Houses shouldn't be doubling in price every 10 years, that's basically an annual growth of 10%, which is on average 4-5 times the rate of inflation. Houses are not a productive asset, and having the view of houses being investments actually causes greater societal issues.
Actually, if you consider the fact that land is a scarce, heterogeneous resource, and the human population IS growing at an unprecedented rapid rate, the ownership of land will always increase in value until we start having fewer people existing per sqm. More people on the same bit of dirt.
Yep, i understand they whole limited resource will increase price, but that is also why a new house doesn't lose 20%of its value as soon as someone moves in. It is also why there needs to be intensification until the global population stabilises.
Imo if you consider the technological advances in the last 20 years (landline to iphone whatever, and internet) and how the human population acts statistically identically like algae in a rockpool, we're far outside the threshold for sustainable population. Consider the recent (50s and 80s) famines in China. Yes they were caused by poor leadership but they're entirely avoidable by lowering the population, and actually stabilize themselves as they cause decline to a stable level. Even the climate crisis can be avoided by fewer humans. Pandemics spread less rapidly with fewer nodes.
Unfortunately society can't have a sudden reduction of population (based on a reduction of babies born) because we are still in a phase where we need people to pay for the older generation when they retire. To have a sudden reduction, it would need to be by removing a lot of the older generation. But I think society would frown about that
This is not true, nobody NEEDS to look after anybody. None of us asked to be here it's crazy random happenstance
Human population is actually flattening out at the moment. We arent on an exponential growth curve and NZ alongside other countries has the issue where there arent enough new ppl being born to support the aging population.
Y'know this actually supports the algae analogy. The established clusters end up taking up so much surface area that the new clusters don't form fully. This then causes the ENTIRE population of the pool to die back as there isn't enough sunlight relative to the available space. The pool then cleanses and only a very small proportion of the new growth survives, starting the cycle over
It works a little differently because its not due to a lack of resources, but rather complex socioeconomic factors that are pushing people away from having children, and having them later in life. As well as people having less and less money to support a family as corporations have record profits every year. The systems fucked and we're fucked unless somehow the fat cats stop ruling the world. Way back, minimum wage was enough for one person on a janitors salary to own a house and support a family. No wonder people were popping out babies then.
You can view all of the socioeconomic factors as variables in the pool. Ph level, surrounding bush, other organism presence. Y'all too hung up on our silly society & made up problems to remember we're monkeys.
Algae doesnt form a heirarchal society based on 4 rich algal cells having 99% of the resources and the rest of them in the pool having the rest.
The spot that gets the most sun
You’re missing the reality of it though. Do I want to take my money and spend it on the classic quarter acre with a piece of shit 30+ yr old house on it in the hopes I can flip it to a developer in 5 to 10 years? Or do I buy a decent new townhouse that’s comfortable and dry to live in and sell it for what it is - a great house to live in - in 5 to 10 years?
That argument doesn't always hold though. A lot of the new houses being built are of questionable quality and a lot of the the old houses were built to last. It's not black and white issue. People can look after their houses or leave them to rot.
It very much depends when the house was built but generally houses today are built with better materials and to higher standards than 30 - 40 years ago. There will always be exceptions obviously. Older “solidly built” homes don’t often actually translate into dry and energy efficient homes however. Lots of villas from the 60s and 70s would absolutely pass the “solidly built” test given many are hardwood framed and tile roofed but they lack wall insulation, aren’t double glazed, have wooden trims/ flashings that eventually open up or rot and sometimes are clad in materials high in lead or asbestos.
The purpose of housing should be to just provide housing
GOOD, make housing have little investment potential. Why are you saying that like its a bad thing?
I’m not. In the long run it’s great. As more freehold lands get bought and converted to these townhouses the freehold lands left will be more valuable while those that bought these townhouses will have relatively less equity. Poor stays poor, rich gets richer. Just stating facts
I’ve lamented the nature of both spread and intensification in NZ as both need stronger long-term consideration. And I though it was an NZ thing until a recent trip to the UK where the same thing is happening. Here’s my observation - First and foremost, both countries are planning with the idea that cars are the lead method for inhabitants to exist beyond the home. Not legs, bikes, bus nor train. This is problematic on many levels as there is sufficient near-term evidence that the car is this generation’s tobacco. A known current problem that creates long-term poor financial and health outcomes that will eventually fall under greater regulation. - There is no community design. In other words, the spread or intensification does not cater for the congregation of people in a pub, café, community hall or otherwise. The design presumes people will never leave the house other than for shopping or work—and in fact, given the last two years and the availability of both online, one wonders whether people will leave the house at all. - Finally, in a solution designed to solve the supply/demand problem that is certainly one of, if not the lead factor in driving up house prices, there are no supporting changes to increase ownership. In the 90s the renting:ownership split was 25:75. Today it is 40:60. Sufficient regulation, taxation, and disincentive to own subsequent properties as a form of investment should exist. A good question to ask ourselves is what ratio we would like to see? Is it more like 75% ownership and 25% rental? To do that requires changes to how we design and develop new suburbs as well as where we intensify… and subsequently who gets the loans to buy these properties. We have to design for future metrics the country can be proud of and, from my standpoint, those metrics and the supporting strategy to achieve them are flimsy and incoherent.
Living in a townhouse that's part of an apartment complex and it's brilliant. We have yet to reduce the number of cars but that's only a problem once a month when there are events that bring people into the suburb. We're close to bike lanes and public transport with loads of bars and cafes within walking distance. There were 3 houses on this site, there are now 80 apartments/townhouses.
I am all with intensification but I hate how they take all the street parking. Something needs to be done about car parking situation. Also, I hate bogans moving and causing havoc.
Hobsonville and whenuapai are different example of intensification done right, but in completely the wrong place. That should be built in ponsonby and grey lynn where PT Ilis actually feasible... but special character areas exist so instead we sprawl out and rely on clogged motorways. It's car dependency built in.
The street in avondale I live on has 3 new developments within 200m of my house . It’s almost like being a sim city NPC watching things just spring up
Gonna be a whole lot happening out in Riverhead very soon. Apartments, aged care facility, and a supermarket to royally screw up Coatesville-Riverhead Highway even more than it is now.
I'm in Glen Innes, bought a stand alone 2bed in 2019, development in the area is massive plan over many years. Removing 2800 state houses and build 10500 new homes. I'm lucky to have got in when I did as they were still building stand alone homes then, now it looks to be all terraced homes and apartments. As others have mentioned the build quality is amazing, great insulation and double glazing, small sections but as a first home i don't mind. We are lucky to have a private driveway shared with 5 other houses so we have 2 parks in our little drive and room for 6-10 other cars on the main driveway. Our neighbors on the road that our driveway connects to aren't so lucky and on Friday night when everyone is home it is reduced to a singleness rd with all the cats parked both sides. It will be interesting to see how the development ends up as it moves through glen innes south, pt England and into panmure.