Housing Minister Chris Bishop has told real estate agents that the government wants to “flood the market” with opportunities for housing development.
It has agreed to a range of changes that would free up land for housing, and, the government hopes, make housing more affordable.
My rough summary of proposal:
- Most cities will be required to have zoned enough land for 30 years of housing demand all the time
- These cities won’t be allowed to determine urban/rural boundaries
- Must intensify, especially around major public transport routes. If they decide not to for character reasons, then equivalent capacity must be opened up in another area
- cafes, dairies, etc (mixed use) must be allowed in residential areas
- appartments not allowed to have minimum floor area or requirement for balcony set by council
- councils already intensifying under a previous agreement (MDRS) will keep this, but if they change it then they have to move to using new rules
Let me know if I’ve got something wrong!
Expensive unsustainable sprawl
expensive unsustainable sprawl
deciding not to intensify for character reasons will lead to denser sprawl on city fringes without amenities, defeating the point a great extent given public transport funding has been slashed. This is already happening in Auckland
mixed use fuck yes do that
no minimum apartment size seems terrible when combined with the other sprawl idk. Banks are already very squeamish about lending less than 45sq m aren’t they or has that changed
Wasn’t the MDRS better than this though?
Build good quality, well sized apartment blocks and terraces in centrally located connected areas people actually want to live. If the private market can’t or won’t do that, then the state needs to step in and do it, like in every other housing crisis we’ve had in this country.
#1 & #2 does feel like a bit of a gift to the folks who got in some years ago and banked land on the boundaries. Explains why an apple orchard down the road felled all the trees and just left them there - no new grafts or anything; the block got bought by a major property developer who must have seen the chances of either a zoning change or removal of the urban/rural zone coming.
Sprawl typically also means fewer 200+m2 houses on larger blocks of land when looking at opening up public spaces and building denser housing close to public transport is a better solution for long term transport emissions.
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Isn’t the whole point of the legislation encouraging just what you’re suggesting though?
It’ll be great if it does, but there appears to be a big focus on greenfield both explicitly and giving opt outs to councils that can push to “other” areas if they don’t upzone so called character areas.
So pushing development to the fringes that are less served by existing infrastructure and services, and therefore more expensive or just downright worse in that regard.
There is a greenfield development in Upper Hutt that is nearing completion, on a former Ag Research piece of land. It’s a very dense development, a mixture of townhouses and stand alone buildings, with the standalone buildings mostly multi story. Still has walking access to public transport and shops, too.
It’s definitely easier to build on a large scale when starting from scratch like that.
Does that give incentive for the council to not use the character clause? They can use it, but if they do they will face more expensive servicing of properties.
Yes I’d imagine so, and they might take it that way.
On the other hand, they might make the politically easier decision in the short term if those more expensive servicing costs are incurred in the future when it comes time to maintain/replace greenfield infrastructure.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure councils bend to NIMBYs all the time, even when it’s a bad idea.
But there have been some recent examples, Auckland, Wellington, where they haven’t so I guess there’s hope!