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Speaker 1: Some questions been raised this morning around construction, specifically on townhouses.

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Speaker 1: Do we have an oversaturated market our developers focusing on

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Speaker 1: maximum returns while paying little attention to design and comfort.

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Speaker 1: Dan Richardson is the director of KR Construction and is

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Speaker 1: with us.

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Speaker 2: Dan morning, Good morning mate, thanks for having me, not

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Speaker 2: at all.

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Speaker 1: Where's this come from? Who's talking about this? Why is

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Speaker 1: this a problem?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So we're interested in having a conversation about what

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Speaker 2: works and what doesn't for medium density housing. There's been

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Speaker 2: some negative media coverage recently around a couple of things

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Speaker 2: to do with quality for that type of housing, specifically

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Speaker 2: overheating and also some issues with ventilation, and we think

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Speaker 2: buyers can benefit from a bit more understanding about what

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Speaker 2: works and what doesn't this type.

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Speaker 1: I am and so has this been a buiable ware

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Speaker 1: type scenario? Because I would argue that, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the marketplace, if you're building shonky houses, no one's buying

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Speaker 1: them because there's others to choose from. Or is what's happening?

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Speaker 1: These people are buying them with no idea of how

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Speaker 1: hot you're going to get and how badly designed the

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Speaker 1: place is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know, building townhouses is a relatively

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Speaker 2: new typology in New Zealand. We've had about one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty odd years for you know, a fairly standard

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Speaker 2: standalone house on a large section to develop, whereas it's

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Speaker 2: only been in the last ten years or so that

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Speaker 2: a lot more townhouses have been built. So I do

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Speaker 2: think there has been a bit of a lack of

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Speaker 2: buyer awareness and you know that something I'm hoping to

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Speaker 2: have a conversation.

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Speaker 1: About, how does the whole system work or not work?

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Speaker 1: How is it possible if you go back to England,

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Speaker 1: they've been living in these sort of townhouse type operations

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Speaker 1: for hundreds of years. How is it that it's news

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand and nobody from the council down thought

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Speaker 1: about how to design something properly. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think we've been quite lucky in New Zealand and

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Speaker 2: we've had the luxury of having a bit more land

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Speaker 2: and a bit less population density. And I think it

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Speaker 2: is that change in population density and changes in housing affordability,

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Speaker 2: changing households and lifestyles that are rather than the change

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Speaker 2: towards more townhouse development.

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Speaker 1: Is it just cost?

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Speaker 2: I think predominantly there's a cost factor, and I think

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Speaker 2: it's also to do with household sizes. You know, the

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Speaker 2: average household size the New Zelanders now two point seven people.

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Speaker 2: So we used to demand for really large housing isn't

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Speaker 2: there as much as it could have been in the past. Also,

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Speaker 2: people's lifestyles wanting to live a bit closer to town,

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Speaker 2: live in suburbs, you know, close to their existing relationships.

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Speaker 2: And but you don't get me wrong with affordability as

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Speaker 2: a mass effector in that as well.

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Speaker 1: Of course, how do you tell one townhouse from another,

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Speaker 1: one that's badly built and is going to heat up

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Speaker 1: and kill you versus one that's really beautiful.

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Speaker 2: That's part of the problem really. You know, the Building

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Speaker 2: Code doesn't really provide there's no provision in there for overheating.

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Speaker 2: There's no provision in there for you know, providing really

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Speaker 2: good ventilation above the b A minimum. So we think,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's some good tools out there. We're a

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Speaker 2: member of the Green Building Council, which provides a tool

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Speaker 2: called Echo which can measure overheating. It also provides an

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Speaker 2: independent standard called home Star where you can sort of

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Speaker 2: track the quality of this housing over and above the

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Speaker 2: A minimum in the building Code. So there are tools

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Speaker 2: out there, and I think it's about people having good

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Speaker 2: conversations with the builders or developers that are potentially purchasing

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Speaker 2: from exactly and understanding.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's hope we've smoked the conversation. Let's hope people

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Speaker 1: become aware. Dan Richardson, who's the director of KR Construction,

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Speaker 1: it seems my entire life we've had problem with housing

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Speaker 1: in this country. Haven't built enough, then built too many,

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Speaker 1: then we built ones that leak, and then we decide

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Speaker 1: to change the rules on the ones that leak. There's

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Speaker 1: an apartment building around the corner for me at the moment,

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Speaker 1: brand new building still leaks. All these years later, after

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Speaker 1: a leaky build, still building leak. It's just like we

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Speaker 1: don't seem to be able to get it right. For

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Speaker 1: more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.