National has introduced a terrible housing policy that can only be a reaction of the struggling Chris Luxon to pressure from Nimbies. It means that an Auckland housing unit will have a land cost over $500k more per unit than the MDRS rules. See below for an example
Peter Cresswell has an on point critique here. A Green Party MP shepherded the rules through select committee.
SO WITH HOUSING ONCE again a political football, we await an election to sort out which fuckwits where get to tell us where and how we’re allowed to build, planning rules in and around our city are once again completely up in the air — as they were while we awaited certainty around the MRDS. And without that certainty, it’s impossible for developers and builders to make real plans, uncertain as they are as to how council’s planners might be allowed to curtail them.
Sure, freeing up any land or planning restrictions anywhere will help housing affordability eventually. But it’s not clear that the Christophers’ city-edge botch-up is the solution, even if it were to free up anything at all.
Up or out? Why not both.
Ockhams built 14 flats on 632m2 of land and National’s revised policy will stop that. Deputy Mayor of Auckland Desley Simpson opened the development. The cost of the land under the newly in place MDRS rules is shared among 14 housing units. National wants to continue with the Nimby supporting supply constraining 3 housing units of less than 3 stories.
Chris Bishop attempted to defend a terrible policy on Sunday morning television. I wonder how keen he was on being thrown under the bus by Luxon like this. Nicola Willis must be spitting after spending so much time getting it through. They may have held onto a few NIMBY votes that would have gone to ACT anyway but youth and people who were looking for affordable housing through increased supply will look elsewhere. Dumb politics and a dumb policy.
No Minister 
The surprise is that anyone is surprised. National have no interest in solving the housing crisis, because by and large they are property owners and landlords with a vested interest in the status quo. I’ve long said that if anyone is going to reform planning laws, it will be Labour, but they are currently too beholden to Maori and environmental interests to do anything either. I’m pessimistic about anything happening.
I agree that the policies are pretty hopeless. But I recall that the only Labour policy of 2017 that I liked was that of Phil Twyford, with his ideas on land availability, – and that turned into a bust for unknown reasons.
So I don’t know what the problem is, but I can guess, based on something that happened in our area just recently where two houses and their smallish sections (maybe 600m2 each) are about to be replaced by 16 townhouses. The neighbours (it’s a nice, wealthy suburb) fought it tooth and nail and are massively bitter at their loss.
And they all vote National/ACT!
Something inside the Labour Cabinet or Caucus must have happened Tom because Twitford has hardly been seen since.
I’m considering making the sole determining criteria for my vote this time round being the party which will collapse house prices all around the country.
Are you telling me that the Greens are the best bet in that regard? I’m not sure I can bring myself to do that….
They could only do it by crashing the rest of the economy! 😂
Both parties have relied on a policy of mass immigration in the last 30 years in order to, among other things, feign economic growth.
Housing shortages – eye watering unaffordability and overextended infrastructure is how the mass immigration piper wants to be paid
Yep. Aside from doing jobs that Kiwis won’t do for the money they’re offered, the fact is that adding population is an automatic addition to GDP.
It’s been a while since I looked at the data for 2008-2017 but as I recall the Key government was boasting about average annual GDP growth of some 2.5% (?), which is not bad for a developed nation – but population growth had averaged 1.5% per annum.
The resulting gap of 1% or more doesn’t say much for our productivity, which is really the thing that’s been killing us since the late 1960’s.
Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it!.