Intensified housing unpopular with Aucklanders

By BERNARD ORSMAN

The changing urban landscape of high-rise apartments and terraced houses has received the thumbs down from a narrow majority of Aucklanders.

A Herald-DigiPoll survey of 1000 people - half in Auckland City and the rest from the wider region - has found 48.2 per cent opposed to more intensive housing to squeeze more people into the existing urban area, as per the regionally agreed growth plan, rather than allow the city to sprawl. Support for the plan was 40.1 per cent.

In Auckland City, where up to a year ago the council routinely allowed apartments as tiny as 12sq m, with barely enough room for a single bed and minimal cooking and bathroom facilities, 47.2 per cent opposed the plan and 42.8 per cent supported it.

The wider Auckland region is growing by nearly 40,000 people a year and is headed for a population of 1.6 million by 2021.

The Auckland Regional Council says it is not in the job of stopping growth - that would take draconian measures - but making sure growth is planned and properly controlled.

Intensified housing is most visible in Auckland City, where residents fear badly designed terraced units in the suburbs and low-cost, high-rise apartments in the central business district will quickly become slums.

New controls to improve the quality of housing developments and place a 30sq m minimum size on apartments are viewed with cynicism by community groups.

Says Housing Lobby spokeswoman Sue Henry: "The council should be getting the message by now that people in residential areas do not want this kind of development. Unfortunately, the message is not getting through."

Suburban horror stories include Oteha Valley in Albany, Greenwich Park in Newton, Summerfield Villas in Grey Lynn, Eden One and Eden Two in Mt Eden, Tuscany Towers in New Lynn and Sacramento in Howick.

In Orewa, residents have been fighting to stop their community turning into something like the Gold Coast after the construction of the 12-storey Nautilus apartment tower.

In July, Julie Stout, of the Institute of Architects' urban issues group, wrote in the Herald that it was hard to find an Aucklander who was not embarrassed by the tackiness of the developer-driven, architectural trash being built.

She said the city needed a urban design group of professional, top-level architects, planners and associated designers responsible for an overall vision.

Auckland City has gone some way towards this with moves to double the urban design group from three to six staff and widening the role of the design panel to vet more buildings.

Auckland City mayoral candidate Dick Hubbard said on Wednesday that he was concerned about the proliferation of low-quality apartment developments and would commission a review of planning practices and boost resources in the urban planning division.

Herald-DigiPoll survey

Do you support more intensive housing to stop urban sprawl?

Yes: 40.1 per cent.

No: 48.2 per cent.