Construction Photos

[Davo36]

Hi guys,

I drive by this site pretty regularly. It's in New Lynn and is called West Edge: http://www.westedge.co.nz/

I've seen this land terraced and now have concrete slabs put down. Couldn't work out how they'd make a house out of these?






Those concrete slabs are around 3m wide and 6m long. What they're going to do I guess is go upwards, as per the photos of the units on their website.

Man is this the future? Living cheek by jowl, in 3 level places? Like Coronation Street?

[Nick G]

It's been like that for a long time in many cities, as someone who is used to it... it's fine.

[archinvestor]

It's a good use of space. A lot of these will be popping up around.

[Davo36]

I'm actually not sure what point I'm even making with this thread.

I understand that we have a rising population that we need to house. And having them in tiny houses using little land near a train station makes sense in a lot of ways.

But haven't we also lost something? We used to have 1/4 acre sections. Somewhere for the kids to play backyard cricket, maybe a few fruit trees or a workshop/garage or what have you.

And we also had one parent at home.

Now we have both in the couple working to afford a mortgage on a 3 level bitsy townhouse thing.

We used to be able to drive to work in a reasonable sort of time. Now you either take public transport - which is slow, or spend ages sitting in traffic.

How is all this population growth helping us again?

[Perry]

It's not, but it seems to be - to some. Need more people working and young 'uns as future taxpayers to pay off the gNats 58-60 billion dollar government debt incurred in creating the smoke and mirrors illusion that they call a brighter future.

Broker future would be more like it.

[Davo36]

Here's an updated photo of these houses:




They've got some shade cloth up, so a bit harder to see, but the tilt slabs are in place now.

[Bob Kane]

Like Coronation Street.
I assume it's the only way to get affordable houses now.
100 years ago we use to build long, narrow houses squashed together.
50 years ago we went into 1/4 acre sections.
Now we're back to long, narrow houses squashed together.

[Perry]

A move from a sort of feudalism to something better;
then back to a feudalism variant, eventually.

There is a pattern, I suspect; a plan; a template.
And it's not to the advantage of the "working class."

[ripeka]

I like the concept and the size of the houses doesn't bother me (eg 100m2 over 3 levels). What I would like to see is the developers having to create community pockets such as a grassed + communal BBQ area that all these residents can access; somewhere large enough to kick a ball around. Maintained by the body corporate for the communal use of all 88 townhouses. 2000 home are apparently going to built in this West Edge area. They do a lot of multi-residential stuff in the USA; I hope that developers here are learning from what's been done before in cities around the world and are incorporating good community development principles in their vision and designs. If it's just all high density housing like this first stage with not much thinking about how to create a good sense of community in the area, then I would be concerned it has the potential to end up a bit of a slum.

[smindedf]

I'm actually not sure what point I'm even making with this thread.

I understand that we have a rising population that we need to house. And having them in tiny houses using little land near a train station makes sense in a lot of ways.

But haven't we also lost something? We used to have 1/4 acre sections. Somewhere for the kids to play backyard cricket, maybe a few fruit trees or a workshop/garage or what have you.

And we also had one parent at home.

Now we have both in the couple working to afford a mortgage on a 3 level bitsy townhouse thing.

We used to be able to drive to work in a reasonable sort of time. Now you either take public transport - which is slow, or spend ages sitting in traffic.

How is all this population growth helping us again?

There's still plenty of places in NZ you have the 1/4acre, just not central Auckland, and the people who choose central Auckland have decided they prefer townhouses/apartment and lower prices over the 1/4 acre. I personally prefers an apartment over big land test I have to maintain. Bonus when it's brand new compared to the cold and wet old houses in a lot of suburbs. The key is to have warm, dry houses and big public parks.

[Davo36]

Guys, more photos of these units. I see that my first post was at the end of June 2017. It's now the end of August 2018 and these things still aren't finished. So that's over a year...

[Davo36]

[Davo36]

So I wonder why on earth these things are taking so long to build. This is a site that's supposed to have 1800 residences on it. But they haven't finished one, in around 2 years of construction.

Could it be lack of labour? Lack of capital? Lack of materials?

[Sportsvee]

2nd hand info (so take with salt) is someone brought the land, started building before allowed to, told to stop due to next payment being late, made payment, started building again, missed next payment, told to stop again.

That's the rough situation as told to me. Could be better explained, but ho-hum.

[Davo36]

This sounds about right Sportsvee. It's been very stop start. There should be about 60 tradies working on that site full time.

Often I'll drive by and there's none or maybe like 10.

It's a Chinese project. Maybe they've had trouble getting money out of China.

I wonder how the buyers are feeling.