Auckland's housing crisis hit home in the past couple of weeks as I searched for a flat so that I could move out of my parents' place. I'm a student with two part-time jobs, but the only rooms that I could afford would get me into deeper debt when the transport, food and other living costs were added up.
I went to a well-heeled school in a leafy suburb, yet staying at home is the new norm among my peers studying in Auckland; the burden of borrowing to rent a place to live is simply too much. We are the lucky ones; our parents have bedrooms to spare.
Yet it is in these leafy suburbs that many of those already established in the property market are agitating to pull the ladder up behind them. The outrage from a vocal group of house owners about the new zoning rules in the proposed Unitary Plan is baffling. Most of the outcry arises from some areas previously deemed for single houses on large sections now zoned for "mixed housing urban". When I looked into this, there was nothing to suggest the imagined horror of high-rise apartment blocks looming over backyards. Rather, it permits buildings of up to three storeys.
These still have to be set back from the front of the property, have stringent height and view-shaft controls, and at a limited density when the site is less than 1200sq m. To my mind, these proposed rules are not a threat.