KEY POINTS:
Residents living at Huia Residence in Grafton Rd for more than a decade have been told to move out by the end of the month - leaving some struggling to find accommodation ahead of the influx of students to Auckland.
The University of Auckland has taken a 10-year lease of the high-rise, which has 321 hostel-style rooms.
In a letter sent to residents five days before Christmas, non-students were told to vacate their rooms by January 31.
"I would like to express my very real and deep sorrow that these changes are taking place, and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your friendship and for letting me share a small part of your life," said a letter to residents from Huia Residence management.
Helen Schoonderwoerd, who moved in a year ago, said the news came about a month after residents signed forms indicating that they would stay on in 2008.
"I was shocked, definitely, because we'd all just signed that piece of paper saying we will stay here until April - we all thought our accommodation was secure ... We can't believe it."
A Huia Residence spokesman said the form was an indicator of residents' plans, not a binding contract as rooms were let on week-by-week contracts.
Because the property was classed as halls of residence, it could terminate contracts at an hour's notice.
"There are no long-term contracts, there have never been long-term contracts since we've had the building."
The present management converted it to student accommodation when it took ownership from the area health board in 1990.
The spokesman said the change affected only 11 long-term residents as most of the occupants were transient.
One university graduate who has lived at the hostel for a decade said he was struggling to find a new home.
"This is the place where I want to live in. It's clean, my friends are there, I have a carpark. It's a safe place," said the man, who would not be named.
Petr Stejskal, who hoped to stay until his planned return to the Czech Republic in the middle of the year, struck it lucky finding a new abode.
"I just found something - it was the last room in another hostel."
University of Auckland director of student administration Dr Wayne Clark said the lease responded to the rising demand for student accommodation.
"We get about two and a half times the applications compared to places - there's a definite increasing demand for student accommodation, for university owned and operated."
He said many parents and students wanted the pastoral care offered at a university property, rather than alternatives such as renting a flat.
Dr Clark said Huia Residence was one of several additional spaces the university had secured in pursuit of an objective to increase its student accommodation.
