Developers think small in space race

By ANNE GIBSON and ANGELA GREGORY

Sujit Singh lives in a compact apartment in central Auckland where the bedroom is only a little larger than the average wardrobe.

Mr Singh, 26, a banquet attendant, came to the city from Hyderabad in India three months ago and shares the unit with a friend.

One tenant sleeps in the bed suspended in the roof area, the other on the floor in an enclosed area slightly longer than a human body and only about 2m wide.

Mr Singh is one of many young migrants to Auckland looking for compact apartments, which are springing up to meet demand, particularly from Asian students used to small living spaces.

The students spend most of their days out studying, dine out in the evenings, then lower their heads to climb up a set of internal stairs to get to their suspended bed under which is a wardrobe and study cubbyhole.

The tiny one, two or three-bedroom apartments can fetch $500 a week, and in many cases four people will share a two-bedroom apartment to keep costs down.

Such dwellings have shocked some Aucklanders, who say prisoners have more room.

Some landlords told the Weekend Herald they feared for residents in the event of an emergency and worried about the psychological effects of living in such confined spaces. They also worried that the units would become slums and that the lack of ventilation in the sleeping cupboards could cause health problems.

But the occupants and the developers say the housing space is fine and is meeting a clear demand.

Auckland City Council principal building officer Bob DeLeur said that while some very small apartments were being approved by the council, there were obvious physical size limits like the dimensions required in kitchens and laundry areas to house whiteware.

The Building Code does not prescribe minimum apartment sizes, but requires developers to ensure the inhabitants have an awareness of outside, natural light sources, adequate ventilation and that they do not suffer any loss of amenities.

Mr DeLeur said he had noticed a trend towards more innovative apartment designs with better use of space.

"Once space was left as ceiling, but people seem to now see its potential for beds ... They are trying to maximise what they can get in an apartment."

Mr Singh is perfectly happy with his home in the historic T&G Building behind Smith & Caughey in the central city.

"I like living in the central city, but I'm hardly ever here," he said.

He gets to work on a bus, has no need of a carpark, no furniture and wanted to minimise living expenses.

A number of apartments like Mr Singh's have been built on the fourth floor of the building on the corner of Elliott and Wellesley Sts.

Property investors Gary Hill and Harry van Hoppe, of Mt Olympus Properties, have created the apartments, which include a kitchen/living/lounge/dining area with a window, and an internal bathroom without a window, alongside the sleeping/wardrobe areas.

Mr van Hoppe hopes to squeeze 75 units on to three floors of the old building but said he did not want people to get the impression the units were small.

"We're not doing anything illegal," he said, claiming other city buildings had smaller units and the T&G apartments were "between 60sq m and 70sq m each".

But a real estate agent who had visited the units estimated that some were only half that size.

A pair of Auckland University business students, aged in their 20s, told the Weekend Herald they had no problem with the accommodation.

"It's better than what you get in Hong Kong."

Mr van Hoppe acknowledged that the sleeping units in the apartments were small, but said demand was steep for Auckland apartments and he was proud of the restoration of the historic T&G Building.

Barfoot & Thompson city rental manager Trevor Elwin estimated rents had risen by a third this year alone, with Asians driving the market.

Rental arrears were meanwhile down from above 10 per cent of the rent roll five years ago to only 1 per cent now as renters were afraid of losing their places if they paid late.

Mr Elwin said demand was such that the need to advertise had been cut in half this year.

The single most popular category of rental accommodation was a 60sq m, two-bedroom, unfurnished inner-city unit without a carpark for up to $475 a week, he said. Three to four students would live in such a unit.

"Their concept of space is different ... What we see as a one-bedroom unit, they see as being right for at least two people - one in the bedroom and another on a couch in the lounge room."

An average three-bedroom New Zealand home has an area of about 120sq m.

Statistics New Zealand this week released data showing a staggering apartment boom.

Building consents more than doubled between September and October, rising 107 per cent from485 in September to 1526 inOctober.

BNZ economist Tony Alexander cited Auckland's booming foreign education sector as a driver and said builders would benefit, house prices would rise and rental stock would remain in short supply.