New close-quarters housing on the rise
Neighbours living closer to others are a growing reality in Lower Hutt with consents for higher-density housing having more than doubled last year.
Hutt City Council figures show 136 consents were issued for 320 medium and high-density dwellings in 2018. The number of consents issued in 2016 and 2017 were 52 and 61, respectively.
Craig Walton, chief executive officer of council-owned property company Urban Plus, said interest in medium and high-density housing such as townhouses and apartments was high.
Many buyers were coming to realise the traditional quarter acre section was out of reach, particularly as a first home.
Many Urban Plus developments included medium-density housing and sales indicated the market was coming around to the idea of higher-density housing, he said.
At its Cental Park on Copeland development near central Lower Hutt, Walton said 23 out of 34 townhouses to be built there had been sold in the last three weeks.
The properties were priced from $550,000 and the architecturally designed, low-maintenance houses were an attractive proposition. Houses started at two bedrooms with 80 square metres of living space to larger threebedroom properties with 120sqm.
Higher-density housing in large numbers was still a relatively new concept in Lower Hutt. Walton said, while some might still be getting used to the idea, nearby buyers from Wellington might have fewer reservations.
He expected up to half of the townhouses could be sold to buyers from the capital with higher-density housing already present and accepted in suburbs like Newtown.
Economies of scale kept the prices of townhouses relatively affordable. He said 10 detached houses could have been placed on the Central Park site using a similar amount of infrastructure to service them.
Council city transformation general manager Kim Kelly said higher-density housing fitted in with the Hutt City Council’s Urban Growth Strategy which identified a need for a greater variety of houses in Lower Hutt.