Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Dastardly Bounder,
The Avondale art community has also taken control of their own destiny – the recent “Whau the People” arts festival in the old Three Guys site was really good. Impressive installation art works, performance, interactive arts. All good.
Yes. I know a couple of people involved in that -- they moved to Avondale from a CBD apartment and they're basically what you describe: arts people looking for a little more space and getting engaged in their new neighbourhood. Fingers crossed it works out in the way you envisage.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to llew40,
The area is full of people in similar positions to ourselves – people who have lived elsewhere and returned to Auckland and NZ aspiring to live in a vibrant, varied city and making a contribution to that in their own way. I don’t think of that as ‘un-cooling’ the area.
Heh. My choice of headline seems to be taking up more of the discussion than I intended. My main motivation was really looking at that big demographic change in Western Bays. It's quite a shift.
Intensification is happening – albeit not in a particularly planned way. But in my street alone nearly half of the sections have already been sub-divided.
I’m even OK with the idea of Unitech getting to develop some of their extensive land holding for residential purposes.
Totally. It seems like a no-brainer. Transportblog had an intriguing post on the way bus/cycle/foot traffic could be integrated in the development.
But yes, point well made about the way Unitec has approached it.
-
Interest.co.nz has the story of an Avondale do-up selling for $870,000 -- which even in 2014 is a lot for the area, given that refurbishment would easily take it over a million.
But as interest points out:
But the main attraction was undoubtedly the land and its zoning.
The house sits on 653 square metre section and according to Bayleys the land is zoned Residential 7B which allows one dwelling per 200 square metres of land.
So the section could potentially accommodate three dwellings.
On top of that the site will fall within a special height zone under the Auckland Council's proposed Unitary Plan, which would allow buildings up to 20.5 metres high, enabling multi level town houses to be built.
Avondale is a mature suburb and has traditionally been regarded as working class.
Many of its residents will be retired folk living in homes similar to this one.
If their sections are able to be subdivided, they could be sitting on their own little gold mines.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Yamis,
That’ll learn me for reading a post and then replying to it and not reading the post underneath which basically answers it, and makes similar points, though more succinctly :) haha
It was interesting, though -- especially the rail part.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Jack Harrison,
Jesus,stop making out that the bayboomers were fiscal saints, they never were. They spent like crazy fuckers. I was there.
Everyone had a great time!
But quite a lot of them now are happily in million-dollar houses that cost them $30,000. There's that.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Amanda Wreckonwith,
Try the other end of that stick Russell. I want more restrictions.
Ah. We’re agreed on that, then.
Change may come in many forms. Perhaps satellite communities on the North Shore, South and West Auckland will spring up that will foster the cultural phenomena that happened in Ponsonby/Grey Lynn. Society is fracturing so holding on to some old paradigm of a minimum size for a viable community seems less valid.
Yeah, there’ll always be suburban scenes, but there’s lots of evidence that a more concentrated city is more interesting than a sprawl. It’s just a really big demographic shift in a short time, and I think I’m entitled to a view that it’s going to make my ’hood less interesting.
I’m hardly an expert on NZ music scene but isolation and a cheap cost of living didn’t seem to serve Dunedin too badly in the past. Maybe the Ranui Sound is the next big thing.
Dunedin still has unbelievably cheap houses, though – and the kind of central city spaces that can be hired for cheap as practice rooms. So it’s not like you need to move away from where everything is clustered.
I actually know a couple of people who’ve moved to Dunedin recently in pursuit of a more easily-sustained life.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Stephen R,
The People’s Republic of Christchurch is however looking at forming a council owned corporation and buying the State houses the gummint wants to sell, and then building more.
Interesting contrast with the Banks years in Auckland, where the council just started selling off its social housing stock to private owners and the Clark government had to step in and buy it up.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to bob daktari,
market might be stable – the lot of a renter most certainly isn’t
Yes, that was kinda my point. Everything Amanda W suggested would make long-term renting a less attractive alternative.
-
Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Amanda Wreckonwith,
They don’t even have to be state houses. We just have to make sure the restrictions placed on landlords, rental agreements and capital gains are conducive to a rental culture.
The Auckland rental market is actually pretty stable compared to the crazy market in ownership. I don't see how placing even fewer limits on capital gains is going to ease the housing bubble -- quite the reverse, in fact. And allowing rental agreements to be even looser in the landlord's favour is the opposite of the kind of long-term occupancy Sam was talking about.
You keep going on about how change is good, out the one thing you don't seem to want to let change is the mode of housing, in line with demand.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 384 385 386 387 388 … 2279 Older→ First