Thinking bigger on apartment design

By Bernard Orsman

Developers can no longer build cramped 'shoebox' apartments under sweeping new urban design measures.

The days of poky apartments are over in central Auckland with the introduction of strict new design rules, including minimum apartment sizes.

The Auckland City Council has approved the new planning controls, which aim to stop developers building tiny "shoebox" apartments.

The new rules, first mooted in June 2005 as part of sweeping new urban design measures under Mayor Dick Hubbard and the City Vision-controlled council, include a minimum size for a studio of 35sq m and a ban on windowless apartments.

The city's smallest apartments are about 12sq m.

Nigel Cook, of design lobby group Urban Auckland, yesterday said it was a great pity the council did not introduce some rules 15 years ago.

"They then would have been useful and we wouldn't have all these future slums," he said.

Until December 2004, the council argued it was powerless to set out rules on design in the central city.

Then Urban Auckland took the council to court over the non-notified approval of a 36-storey apartment tower and Justice Patrick Keane issued a landmark ruling putting greater emphasis on the architecture of new buildings in central Auckland.

Auckland City Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker said the new rules were all about ridding the city of poor quality design and poky apartments.

Planning and regulatory committee chairwoman Glenda Fryer said: "The council has no tolerance for poor-quality urban design.

"These new controls mean we now have the ability to stop poor developments in their tracks."

The controls also apply to the western part of the central city known as the Victoria Quarter.

APARTMENT RULES

Minimum sizes