You can’t choose your neighbours

Kathleen Wilson says her flat at the top of Queen St is noisy. Picture / Martin Sykes

Inner-city apartment dwellers have expressed reservations about high-density living in Auckland.

Councillors and architects have this week been debating the growth of high-rise apartments in the city, with some predicting that the buildings will turn into ghettos.

Yesterday, the Herald spoke to residents, who liked their proximity to most amenities but also spoke of "no-hoper" neighbours and traffic noise.

One man living in the 13-storey apartment tower at 508 Queen St, near the intersection with Karangahape Rd, said his view of the apartment tower across the road was of "all kinds of no-hopers, druggies and weirdos".

"They stand there smoking, throwing their cigarette butts out the window and drinking all day. One woman spends the day sitting in a chair and walking around naked".

The resident, who did not want to be named, said he paid $230,000 for a 35sq m studio with a carpark one year ago, which was now worth less than $200,000.

He still had a view of the Harbour Bridge and the Waitakere Ranges but now he had the unpleasant view across the road.

"I like apartment living. It's just where I'm situated. These low-class buildings they have been putting up are just a disaster. They will be ghettos in time."

The man said he could not understand how Auckland City Council could allow such poor-quality buildings when it was trying to upgrade Queen St.

But Kathleen Wilson, 20, said her neighbours were good people.

Housing New Zealand placed her in a one-bedroom apartment at the top of Queen St five months ago, but she would prefer to live in a house "with a bit of land".

Ms Wilson said life in Queen St was a big change from the rural outskirts of Rotorua.

"It's my first time living in a big city like this and I'm trying to get used to it."

Ms Wilson likes the security and the handiness to amenities, but finds it noisy.

International student Bonita Di finds traffic noise a problem.

She moved from a house in the suburbs to be within walking distance of the Auckland University of Technology, where she studies.

Ms Di says the mostly student population at the Harbour Green Apartments where she lives make for good neighbours.

Another apartment resident, who did not want to be named, said noise was also a big problem in her rented apartment on Vincent St.

In her six months there, she's had to put up with noise from a neighbouring construction site, police sirens and a constantly wailing baby from the unit next door.

"If you get bad neighbours when you live in a house, you just don't talk to them, but if you get bad neighbours in an apartment, you have to live with them.

"Someone had a party next door, and it was almost like I was there.

Despite this, the resident said she liked apartment living and had bought an apartment for herself in Parnell.

- additional reporting: Bernard Orsman