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21sq m apartments being built in South Auckland

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 29 Jul 2019, 9:45AM
(Photo / Supplied)

21sq m apartments being built in South Auckland

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 29 Jul 2019, 9:45AM

They're smaller than most meeting rooms and only twice the size of a prison cell - studio apartments just 21sq m are being built in Auckland despite local "anti-shoebox" rules.

Developer DuVal is building 91 tiny studios within its new 14-storey Lakewood Plaza building in Manukau and selling them as half of a "twin-key" set-up, where two apartments are part of one title and connected through a door.

Buyers were able to purchase one 21sq m studio and one 32sq m one-bedroom apartment - each with kitchen and bathroom - for around $800,000.

All but eight of 150 apartments in the building have sold.

The twin-key packages were marketed as either "high yield" investments, or a "home and income package" with a rental appraisal last year estimating buyers could rent the two for around $650 a week.

This is despite the studio and the one-bedroom each falling well short of minimum size regulations brought in under the Auckland Unitary Plan in 2016, to combat a rash of "shoebox" apartments cluttering the centre city.

Urban Designer Tracy Ogden-Cork told Mike Hosking there's clearly demand for them.

"They are attractive in the sense that if you are a young couple and you needed to rent out a room to help pay for your mortgage, a dual -care arrangement gives you an opportunity to do that with a bit more privacy."

 

 

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