This morning, Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced a whole raft of changes designed to make houses more affordable, and one of those changes is that he will remove any requirements for how big an apartment must be and how big the balcony must be.
He reckons that back in 2015 when Auckland Council changed balcony size restrictions, it pushed the price of apartments up by $40,000- $70,000 each.
Good call from him, it's about time we got on board with this.
The very first property I put under my name was a tiny, tiny apartment. The bedrooms were so small, you could fit in a double bed with just enough space to walk around it with your shoulders touching the walls.
I didn't have space for a dining table, so I took a bed out of a bedroom and put a dining table in and you could just get the chairs out from under the table without hitting the walls - it was that tiny.
But it was what I wanted, which was a place I could afford to buy in the middle of the city. And by the end of living there, to be honest, I was embarrassed by how tiny it was and I sold it and moved on to another place.
But at the time, it was perfect. And frankly, I probably couldn't afford much more - but it got me onto the property ladder.
Shoebox apartments are not ideal, but then renting because you can’t afford to buy is less ideal.
And yes, there will be developers who take the mickey with how small they can go, and these kinds of apartments are often an eyesore to everyone else who has to look at them.
But frankly, our priority has got to be something else. It's got to be letting people into their own homes, however small.
We have to accept we have a housing crisis, we've got to accept it’s not good for younger generations to feel like they’re locked out of home ownership.
And if they want to live in a small space because it’s all they can afford, why prevent them?
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
Balconies are an absurd luxury requirement. Many have no desire to sit about doing nothing anywhere. Balconies are an engineering, maintenance and safety risk. A risk whenever children present or visiting. See in some of the state apartments balconies used as storage for clutter. Blue plastic tarpaulins as semi permanent sun screens. Idle persons sitting about drinking and playing raucous music to annoy all. The only virtue is for drying clothes if permitted.
Clearly with the raising of hostel standards and rental standard regulations there is a severe shortage of accommodation for the unemployable in particular. It is absurd that any state effort to fit into high rise apartments incurred an expensive unwanted and unnecessary balcony, often a risk for the intended occupants.
Those in lovely suburbs within 800 metres of railaways stations brace yourselves for six plus stories of a new breed of neighbour on your sunny side boundary (and the 3 others.)
Totally agree with this. We need more affordable housing, it's as simple as that. 😊
I'm conflicted by this. While the logic presented here makes some sense, I can't help but think of the people in some countries in Asia, who live in 'coffin apartments'. Spaces no bigger than a single bed. Despite the opposition to the concept, slippery slopes do exist.
So long as property remains the most lucrative investment in NZ, people will take advantage and push the price of even the smallest apartments up the absolute maximum. In 20 years we will be having the same conversation about how tiny apartments are no longer affordable and we need yet another solution.
Hear, Hear !! Heather.
Thanks for a level headed realistic article.
Had to clean the coffee off my keyboard after reading about your tiny, tiny apartment. Still, a good laugh. Multiple bedrooms that you could fit a double bed in is not tiny, let alone tiny, tiny. Having lived in China, your tiny, tiny apartment would be for a family of four.
This is what we will be heading for. Could it work, for cultures that have grown that way, absolutely. Can you really see such tower blocks full of kaianga ora clients being a pleasant place to spend your days. Or is it a case of our of mind out of sight.
As a property professional of considerable experience, I can unequivocally state that the last thing any sensible purchaser would want to do is go into a body corporate situation.
Body corporate levies are set annually by elected committees in consultation with the building manager and a body corporate management company.
These are usually predictable and increases must be tabled at an AGM and voted on by unit owners.
This usually serves to keep annual increases to an affordable level.
The problem is that if major common area expenditure is required—such as if the building’s air conditioning plant requires urgent replacement but as out of warranty and there’s a shortfall between the amount in the long term maintenance budget and full replacement cost—the body corporate can impose a special levy on all unit owners.
This might leave unit owners legally obligated to come up with many thousands of dollars that they probably don’t have available, particularly if mortgaged to the hilt to buy their unit.
The other problem with a body corporate situation is that the person who typically gets onto a body corporate committee is someone with a pathological need for self-importance and ego inflation, generally with few if any real claims in that direction.
Knobstacles.
Also, unit owners have no control over whom the neighbouring unit owner might rent their apartment to.
While body corporate rules provide for quiet enjoyment, tenancy legislation is heavily weighted against the landlord.
Even with multiple antisocial breach notices providing sufficient evidence for immediate termination of tenancy, it takes up to four months for a landlord to get a tenancy tribunal hearing date, owing to under-resourcing and a massive caseload backlog.
Meantime, those meth dealing social housing tenants who bring 200 thieving, tagging, intimidating, woman harassing lowlifes a week into a high end apartment block, just get to go right on partying up the large, trashing their unit, and treating the common area like a public toilet.
The type of multi-level shoebox apartments envisaged by Heather is likely to have several contiguous floors head-leased to MSD and to contracted community housing providers.
As noted above, anywhere with social housing tenants experiences massive problems.
I wonder how Heather would cope with coming home at 3am after a night out clubbing to find herself sharing a lift to Level 60 with several leering, groping, tattooed, crackhead gang members.
Or getting out of her car in the basement and stepping in a pile of puke or excrement.
Not a situation I’d want for one of my daughters.
My recommendation to get on the first rung of the property ladder is to purchase a one or two bedroom unit in a mid-standard suburb close to transport links, in a block of no more than four, and on a cross lease rather than unit title.
Even better if a bit of paint, some new carpets and drapes, and an inexpensive bathroom and kitchen renovation can readily bring it up to high spec.
In a nation with one twelfth of the population of UK why are we talking about 6 story shoebox apartments? Why are we planning to exacerbate the problems of our already overcrowded big cities? There are vast, beautiful areas available to be converted into equally beautiful livable towns of rational size, with appropriate infrastructure/transport facilities and essential amenities. Where are the town planners and architects who should be screaming for such an approach to our future? But where are the jobs you wail? Building the new towns! Right there! No, just too hard, we would never get the resource consents through. Oh well, I tried.
Small apartments are fine for single people who just want a secure roof over their head with few if any amenities. The problem is that when single parents buy them, because that's all that they can afford, the small size and lack of amenities becomes a problem.
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