Bill McKay: Architecture Professor backs Auckland's plans for more apartment buildings

Auckland councillors have mixed views on the issue of replacing some of the city's kauri villas and bungalows with six-storey apartments to help address the city's housing crisis.But after an all-day planning meeting, a majority of councillors voted to proceed with a Government directive to increase intensification deep inside many traditional suburbs and along public transport routes.Mayor Phil Goff said the issue is about finding a balance between intensification and protecting what is important to the city in the way of cultural and architectural heritage.He said the council is required to implement the Government's National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development, which gives the council discretion to keep some special character areas."We are not going to send in the bulldozers and wipe out the old villas," said Goff.Bill McKay, a senior lecturer in architecture and planning at Auckland University, told Francesca Rudkin that people need to accept that cities are about people, not buildings. "Often when we talk about housing, people are thinking about one house for life. Increasingly we're not living like that. We want different houses for different stages of life." He says that "lifestyle pornography" is pressuring people to have big houses and lots of space, but people need to "be a bit more sensible" in how they live. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.