Page 43 - HW 1121

outdoor structures
Do more and
better with glulam posts
Manufactured from select quality pine timber, Prolam PL12
H5 glulam posts are structurally engineered timber elements offering high strength, dimensional stability, good load carrying capacity and superior fire resistance.
PL12 H5 posts also provide increased bracing units and increased stability which means fewer posts for the job.
H5 treated for structural use, Prolam PL12 H5 glulam posts are CodeMark Certified, offer a premium visual finish (natural, bandsawn, pre-primed and sanded & sealed options are available) and can be custom sized on request.
www.prolamnz.com
Celebrate project’s end with a cold one!
Simpson Strong-Tie is pleased to bring the APBO Bottle Opener to the New Zealand market this summer. The APBO is
a decorative, three-piece kit that’s easily installed (screws are included) and works well with both the Outdoor Accents Mission Collection and Avant Collection. The APBO Bottle Opener is available from 1 December.
https://strongtie.co.nz/
 Continued from page 15
No surprises then that FORM Garden Architecture itself is also super busy, with demand for its sketch design service almost doubling since last year, says Craig.
Describing the Christchurch market as “remarkably busy” across both new builds and renovations, he picks out suburbs like Rolleston, which have doubled in scale (and grown increasingly unaffordable) in just a short number of years.
Partly because of the city’s spread, sections are rare as hen’s teeth, he says, describing the situation as a “genuine shortage”, to the extent that “People are buying sections off the plans that haven’t been titled!
“If today you decided you wanted to buy a section in Christchurch, good luck, you just couldn’t...”
People have even been buying sections that might not be titled for a year or 18 months but they’re still going ahead getting their plans sorted, he says, despite the risks involved.
Still, with so many sections already in train, Craig Wilson reckons this chronic shortage of ready to build sections won’t put a dampener on business.
THE INTENSIFICATION OF CHRISTCHURCH
It’s clear that the “Garden City” is changing and is becoming both urbanised and suburbanised.
Craig Wilson for one reports a big increase in multi-unit
builds: “People are taking an old house in an existing suburban setting, knocking it down and putting four to five units up.
“There’s a massive part of the market in Christchurch at the moment,” he says, to the point where smaller sections are simply the new normal.
The Government allowing builds of up to three storeys without resource content will further compound this shrinking effect and will materially change the fabric of our urban suburbs, Craig believes.
On top of which, Christchurch is seeing a massive reduction in section size in even average subdivisions: “You really struggle to get a six, six or seven 500 square metre section.”
“Most of them are 400-500 square metres and for Christchurch, that’s whoa...”
Welcome to what Auckland has been experiencing for the last few years, I say.
But what does this mean for landscapers? “The jigsaw puzzle just gets a bit tighter,” says Craig Wilson.
“Also, all of those multi-units need a landscape plan for resource consent, so that keeps us pretty busy.”
HARD AND SOFT PINCH POINTS
Last year, while I heard tales of the odd hiccup in the supply of hard landscaping products, the shortage of mature plants was marginally worse, with the nurseries simply unable to respond in time to a surge in demand.
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NOVEMBER 2021 | NZHJ 41