Matchbox units

Our young family moved to Wellington nine months ago. We bought in Newtown, attracted by its diversity, charm and proximity to the CBD.

To our shock we find that 180 metres from our home a matchbox apartment building is proposed with tiny apartments, most of which are only 28m2.

I attended the Saturday meeting to understand the proposed Mary Potter Hospice development of investment flats at 48 Mein and Owen streets. It gave me no comfort. The building will shadow more than a dozen adjoining houses. The design is ugly, and the scale is overpowering.

We are not opposed to higherdensity housing but it must be well designed and in sympathy with adjoining properties.

Wellington City Council has already identified northern Adelaide Rd and Cambridge and Kent terraces for high-density housing. These would be much better locations for this type of investment housing, rather than an old suburb characterised by Victorian villas and increasingly by young families.

In Auckland the minimum size for an apartment is 40m2. Poor quality matchbox apartments are the slums of the future and we do not want them in Newtown, or Wellington.

We expect better from Mary Potter Hospice. INDIA KORNER Newtown