Could tiny apartments solve Auckland's housing crisis?

Friday, 19 July 2019

Latin America's approach to high density living could provide part of the answer to Auckland's housing crisis, an economist says.

Latin America's biggest cities are seeing a boom in the construction of super-tiny apartments made bearable by generous shared communal spaces.

Some of the individually-titled apartments are as small as 10 to 20 square metres.

Many Auckland homes have master bedrooms larger than that. The tiny individually-titled Latin American apartments are not for living in like traditional homes, however.

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They are largely for sleeping in, with the owners passing much of their leisure time in communal living spaces in the new-style apartment blocks in cities like Sao Paulo and Mexico City.

These include shared kitchens and dining spaces, private cinemas, lounges, co-working spaces, gyms, gardens, and rooftop terraces.

Though Latin American cities are very different from Auckland, they have some things in common, including a lack of affordable homes and populations rising so fast people are having to change the way they live.

This affordability crisis is raising questions about whether it's time for Auckland to look at overseas models of city living, even those which would require a major overhaul of the unitary plan which guides building in New Zealand's biggest city.

The communal spaces in micro apartment complexes replace individual living areas.

AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

Kiwibank chief economist Jarred Kerr estimates the chronic shortage of affordable dwellings in New Zealand has reached an unprecedented level.

'This time last year we showed a shortage of 100,000 homes across New Zealand. Our population growth has outstripped housing supply, again. We're now short 130,000 homes.'

It's so bad Kerr believes it is time to consider radical alternatives.

'We have got more than enough land for New Zealand to double its population,' he says.

But we have to use the land better.

'Land usage is a bit like a habit, and it is hard to break it.'

'The idea we need to look for different options and alternatives is pretty clear,' Kerr says.

THE LATIN WAY

The micro apartments developed by the likes of Vitacon in Latin American cities are marketed as being homes for young professionals unable to afford a traditional home without having to commute for hours every day from far-flung city fringes.

It's a model that is not entirely alien to Auckland, or New Zealanders.

John Duguidm who is the manager of Plans and Places at Auckland Council, says there is plenty of student accommodation that essentially provides rooms with co-living areas.

There was also the newly-opened Coh in Auckland, where people rent rooms, and have 'co-living' spaces to do their actual living in.

But Coh is essentially a boarding house, and the student accommodation does not involve individually unit-titled apartments, with co-ownership of shared spaces.

That is partly because unlike the permissive planning rules in many Latin American cities, Auckland's unitary plan sets a bottom limit of 35 square metres for individually unit-titled dwellings, Duguid says

'That was really thrashed out in the hearings on the unitary plan a few years ago,' he says.

Some wanted the minimum size to be higher, some lobbied for it to be lower.

Some even lobbied for there to be no minimum size at all, including the government of the day, which believed the market should be allowed to decide, Duguid says.

The future of city living? Latin American micro-apartments come with access to communal gardens, kitchens, cinemas and roof terraces.

While tweaks to the unitary plan can, and do, happen, it's slow and costly.

But, Duguid says, developers can seek consents to go outside the unitary plan, though he had heard of none seeking to emulate the Latin American-style tiny apartment with generous communal space model.

CO-LIVING LIVING

The image sold by the Latin American developers is of a modern living environment for young professionals, keen to live close to work, and willing to live smaller to do it, and to get onto the property ladder.

Commutes in some Latin American cities can be measured in hours, the head of Brazilian developer Vitacon, Alexandre Frankel, told the BBC.

Trading down on size, and giving away the idea of ground-level living, can result in a better standard of life, even if it needed a change of mindset, Frankel said.

Coh founder Ben Spence in the new co-living accommodation on Symonds St, Auckland. The Coh made headlines in June for advertising rooms the size of car parks at a rate of $360 per week.

'People sleep in their apartments, but the rest of the building is part of their house too.'

Kerr has experience of living in a small apartment with large shared spaces when he lived in Singapore.

Kerr grew up in a typical Kiwi house, so it took a bit of getting used to.

'I would never have been a big fan of high density apartment living until I moved to Singapore, and that was essentially what we lived in for four years.'

But, he says, people do get used to it, and providing there is enough communal space for the number of people living in a building, it can work well.

A change in the populations of our cities could also result in higher-density living becoming normalised.

Many newer Aucklanders, including Asian migrants, are used to this form of living, Kerr says.

OTHER PEOPLE

Singapore is a famously law-abiding and safe. Not so Brazil.

Auckland did not have to become like Hong Kong to house its growing population.

Shared living spaces mean rubbing along with a greater number of people, and in Brazil has an epidemic of violence and sexual abuse of women.

People, according to the Ikea One Shared House 2030 report found many younger people could see themselves living in more communal ways, but they didn't want to do it with just anybody.

Many really didn't want to share communal spaces with other people's children, or messy people, or rude people, or dishonest people.

The results were based on an online survey of over 7000 people, but it did not ask people about whether they had any safety concerns with co-living.

Filtered for only answers from New Zealanders, the Ikea survey is revealing.

There is the same intolerance for children among Kiwis thinking about co-living (though other people's pets were deemed okay) but they had a preference for boutique co-living of just four to 10 people.

And the preference was for current residents to have a yes, no, say on who moved in, which would put an extra hurdle in front of on-selling of individually-titled mini-apartments.

Controlling co-livers is hard though.

Metlifecare's plans for the communal gardens at the Auckland Gulf Rise retirement village.

Even though Vitacon markets its developments as being for young professionals, they also seek to sell them to investors, who can choose to rent them out for shorter-stay tourists through Airbnb.

BUMP SPACES

Some elements of co-living has begun to emerge in New Zealand, but it's not been based around tiny apartments.

'Bump spaces', and shared gardens are becoming increasingly important in higher-density housing developments.

Last year saw the opening of Ockham's Bernoulli Gardens centred around a large open, communal green space, and was consciously designed to have bump spaces where people living there will bump into each other.

Another Ockham development – Daisy Apartments – had no car-parking, except for spaces for two car share vehicles, which is a feature in some of the Latin American developments.

Retirement Villages are also increasingly delivering to older people's growing desire for communal spaces and gardens that are good for people's mental and spiritual wellbeing, spaces in which growing things can thrive.

KIWI-STYLE DENSITY

Kerr does not believe New Zealand's cities need to reach for the skies like Latin American cities, or Singapore and Hong Kong.

'We don't need to go to those 20-storey apartment blocks,' he says.

But four- and five-storey buildings are needed to house the growing population.

Duguid says higher density living is needed around public transport corridors.

'The goal is to get housing in the right places, and at the same time getting quality, and trying to fit new taller buildings into lower density suburbs,' he says.