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Friday, January 5, 2024

David Farrar: $3.7 million for a toilet block!


Stuff reports:

The construction of a toilet block in south Auckland set the council back more than $3.7 million.

The development of toilets and changing rooms at Ōpaheke reserve in south Auckland was the most expensive, at $3.7 million for the 380sqm block.

So ratepayers forked over around $10,000 per square metre for a toilet block and changing rooms. Now standard builds for habitation are around $3,500 per sq metre. At $7,000 per square metre you get your architecturally designed dream home. Yet this toilet block and changing rooms comes in well above that!

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.

7 comments:

Robert arthur said...

Did it involve traffic control measures?

Scott said...

Over $3m for a toilet block! They're taking the piss. 😁

DeeM said...

Hold on.
Factor in the Maori translation signs, the blessing, the party and reception after the blessing, the overseas trips for councillors to go look at state-of-the-art toilet blocks in Europe, and the leaseback charges once the toilets are gifted to the local iwi, and you'll find that gets it comfortably up to $10k/sq m.

Robert Arthur said...

I know she is so only by association with her husband but it the likes of Lady Moxham which causes principled rational souls like Helen Clark to forego honours. In many countries persons imnciting violence would be jailed. Hopefully the stock instinctive inbred maori reaction of unquestioning violence will generate an interest in the topic by the public generally, and lead to runaway publuc support for rational legal definition.

Peter said...

Barring the Resource Consenting and the Tapu lifting, you took the words right out of my mouth DeeM! Only in NZ.

Anonymous said...

$7k m2 for a bespoke home says something too!

You need to be a John Tamahere scale multi-millionaire to build a decent home nowadays! A bloated building sector is going to get a very rude awakening this year as the economy turns down when the small pool of multi-millionaires becomes smaller!

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is social housing in disguise?