Experts fear that the Government's plan to 'flood' the housing market comes with too many risks.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop has promised to fill urban areas with development land and remove council powers to mandate boundaries and standards.
UOA senior lecturer of Architecture and Planning, Dr Elizabeth Aitken Rose, says freeing up land won't fix the issues in the housing market.
"We've know for the last 10-15 years that land supply along does not make housing more affordable."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb Right concerns the government's plan to flood the housing
market could lead to cheap, slum like development. Housing Minister
Chris Bishop this week announced changes aimed at fixing the
housing crisis. Those include improving intensification, scrapping minimum floor areas
for apartments, house growth targets, and requiring cities to expand
(00:32):
at the urban fringe. Doctor Elizabeth Aikenrose as a senior
lecturer at the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning,
and she joins me, Now, good morning, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Good morning, Francesca, love you to have you with us.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
What are your concerns around these planning changes.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, none of them are new. No, this is the
current government's merely continuing what the previous government is doing,
which is largely loosening up land supply in order to
solve every other problem, and in its week will be
many long term problems such as well as such as
(01:14):
such as building on floodplains and on unstable land and
in fact creating communities or not creating communities but creating
creating sprawl and creating houses of or places in which
people live of very low quality.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Will it make housing more affordable?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
No? No, I mean it loosens up. It loosens up
the market in some respects, but it doesn't make We
know that, we know, we know for the last ten
to fifteen years that just land supply alone does not
make housing more affordable.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The loss of farm land. Can we we can't just
keep building on it, can we?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
No? No, we can't, we can't. We really need to
be building for for resilience. We need to be building
on you know, our least productive and most stable worlds,
not on our most productive. We need you know, we're
going to need to have food supplies are close to cities.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I think a lot of people probably feel that that mix, though,
of expansion and intensification, it sits well with people because
people are that you don't like one or the other,
and having a mix might sound like a good idea.
Would that would that be true? Do you think, Elizabeth Polz?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah? Well, no, having having a mix is definitely what
plans set out to do. They set out to release
land over time, and this is carefully evidence based, not
just evidence based, but also based on community consultation, so
there's there's always provision for expansion and gross and for
(03:08):
decades now we've been trying to encourage intensification and the
Oakland Unitary Plan makes provision for both.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The expansion and the growth. What kind of pressure does
that put on the council? How do we deal with
the infrastructure and everything else that goes along with just
building the houses in areas like.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
This, Well, the infrastructure is the critical problem and its
infrastructure for water supply, for sanitation, for a store, water management,
for education, and for health. And we are basically not
(03:49):
keeping up with that. And I think we've got to
really address in Zealand local government funding models. And it's
not just building a new infrastructure, it's actually maintaining the
infrastructure that we.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Have, absolutely, especially when we're intensifying. So how concerned are
you around the standard of building that could be built?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Extremely concerned, extremely concerned. I think the RNA Enabling Act
last year was twenty twenty one was actually a slum
enabling acts for the future. We're not we're not building
places or we have the potential to not build places
that have our high level of amenity in terms of
(04:33):
light and air enough to land around. So the basic
needs to store your rough supins and hang your washing
out and and we're not that's not being accompanied either
by the development of parks and recreation and so on.
You know, everybody talks talks about how wonderful Paris is
(04:55):
and how people live in very small apartments there, and
they do, but they also have access to some fabulous
community spaces and also to you know, over decades or
centuries wonderful mix mixed use development, so you kind of
live in the city as much as you live in
(05:16):
your home in Paris, whereas in New Zealand we tend
to live in our homes and.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I don't sorry carry on.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So we're built very disconnected cities, so.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
We don't want to be shallow about it. But also
there's an esthetic involved in this as well, and we
kind of end up with these we can in that
with some pretty ugly buildings.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
We are ending up with very ugly buildings, very ugly
buildings indeed, and very ugly buildings that are not set
in particularly beautiful streetscapes either.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So was there a better way, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yes, Yes, we need to plan for the future, and
we need to plan for the present as well, and
we need to plan. We need to have infrastructure that
can support the kind of development that we are doing.
And I think we have some very salutary lessons in
(06:20):
terms of the whole leaky building crisis in New Zealand,
which post incredible stress and costs on private owners and
then on public owners. No, deregulation is not the solution.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Thank you so much for your time this morning. Appreciate
your thoughts. That was doctor Elizabeth Aikenroe, Senior lecturer at
the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning, can
to hear your thoughts about how you're feeling about these
changes that the government has announced around housing as well.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb Right concerns the government's plan to flood the housing
market could lead to cheap, slum like development. Housing Minister
Chris Bishop this week announced changes aimed at fixing the
housing crisis. Those include improving intensification, scrapping minimum floor areas
for apartments, house growth targets, and requiring cities to expand
(00:32):
at the urban fringe. Doctor Elizabeth Aikenrose as a senior
lecturer at the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning,
and she joins me, Now, good morning, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Good morning, Francesca, love you to have you with us.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
What are your concerns around these planning changes.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, none of them are new. No, this is the
current government's merely continuing what the previous government is doing,
which is largely loosening up land supply in order to
solve every other problem, and in its week will be
many long term problems such as well as such as
(01:14):
such as building on floodplains and on unstable land and
in fact creating communities or not creating communities but creating
creating sprawl and creating houses of or places in which
people live of very low quality.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Will it make housing more affordable?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
No? No, I mean it loosens up. It loosens up
the market in some respects, but it doesn't make We
know that, we know, we know for the last ten
to fifteen years that just land supply alone does not
make housing more affordable.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The loss of farm land. Can we we can't just
keep building on it, can we?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
No? No, we can't, we can't. We really need to
be building for for resilience. We need to be building
on you know, our least productive and most stable worlds,
not on our most productive. We need you know, we're
going to need to have food supplies are close to cities.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I think a lot of people probably feel that that mix, though,
of expansion and intensification, it sits well with people because
people are that you don't like one or the other,
and having a mix might sound like a good idea.
Would that would that be true? Do you think, Elizabeth Polz?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah? Well, no, having having a mix is definitely what
plans set out to do. They set out to release
land over time, and this is carefully evidence based, not
just evidence based, but also based on community consultation, so
there's there's always provision for expansion and gross and for
(03:08):
decades now we've been trying to encourage intensification and the
Oakland Unitary Plan makes provision for both.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The expansion and the growth. What kind of pressure does
that put on the council? How do we deal with
the infrastructure and everything else that goes along with just
building the houses in areas like.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
This, Well, the infrastructure is the critical problem and its
infrastructure for water supply, for sanitation, for a store, water management,
for education, and for health. And we are basically not
(03:49):
keeping up with that. And I think we've got to
really address in Zealand local government funding models. And it's
not just building a new infrastructure, it's actually maintaining the
infrastructure that we.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Have, absolutely, especially when we're intensifying. So how concerned are
you around the standard of building that could be built?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Extremely concerned, extremely concerned. I think the RNA Enabling Act
last year was twenty twenty one was actually a slum
enabling acts for the future. We're not we're not building
places or we have the potential to not build places
that have our high level of amenity in terms of
(04:33):
light and air enough to land around. So the basic
needs to store your rough supins and hang your washing
out and and we're not that's not being accompanied either
by the development of parks and recreation and so on.
You know, everybody talks talks about how wonderful Paris is
(04:55):
and how people live in very small apartments there, and
they do, but they also have access to some fabulous
community spaces and also to you know, over decades or
centuries wonderful mix mixed use development, so you kind of
live in the city as much as you live in
(05:16):
your home in Paris, whereas in New Zealand we tend
to live in our homes and.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I don't sorry carry on.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So we're built very disconnected cities, so.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
We don't want to be shallow about it. But also
there's an esthetic involved in this as well, and we
kind of end up with these we can in that
with some pretty ugly buildings.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
We are ending up with very ugly buildings, very ugly
buildings indeed, and very ugly buildings that are not set
in particularly beautiful streetscapes either.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So was there a better way, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yes, Yes, we need to plan for the future, and
we need to plan for the present as well, and
we need to plan. We need to have infrastructure that
can support the kind of development that we are doing.
And I think we have some very salutary lessons in
(06:20):
terms of the whole leaky building crisis in New Zealand,
which post incredible stress and costs on private owners and
then on public owners. No, deregulation is not the solution.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Thank you so much for your time this morning. Appreciate
your thoughts. That was doctor Elizabeth Aikenroe, Senior lecturer at
the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning, can
to hear your thoughts about how you're feeling about these
changes that the government has announced around housing as well.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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