The property is on a cross lease, meaning the owner will need the approval of their neighbour to make any changes to shared spaces, and some alterations to dwellings.
The site was for sale by tender, which closed on Thursday. However, the land remains up for grabs.
According to a council planning department spokeswoman, no resource or building consents have been granted for a house on the site.
The residentially zoned area is a "special character zone", the spokeswoman said. This meant any dwelling built there needed to be "sympathetic to and consistent with" other original character buildings in the area.
Mark White, the council's manager of central resource consents, said that because of the size and restrictions of the site, building would be a non-complying activity, meaning it would require a resource consent before work could be carried out.
"Potential owners would need quite a bespoke design to meet resource consent requirements in order to build at this property."
The small section for sale on Richmond Rd Ponsonby. Photo / Barfoot & Thompson
A consultant for the Architectus architectural practice, John Sinclair said he himself had built a home on a small site in Parnell that was only 10m wide and about 16m to 18m long.
On it, he had a three-bedroom dwelling with a study, living room, library, dining room and an internal courtyard.
"It's inner-city housing on a scale that still provides for good family living," he said.
A half-share of the Ponsonby cross-lease property is a small space to build in, but it's not uncommon to fit tiny homes into skinny spaces.
In London last year, a terrace house just over 2m wide was at auction with a starting price of £235,000 ($560,700), according to the Daily Mail.
The two-bedroom dwelling was built in a driveway in 1996.
The narrowest property in Britain is a terraced house on the Isle of Cumbrae, in Scotland.
The wedge-shaped home sits between two shops and is just 1.19m wide at the street frontage, and 3.35m at its widest point.
