Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on the Housing Minister's plan to boost the housing market

Housing Minister Chris Bishop says six major changes to housing reflect the needs of a modern population.

They'll let cities expand at the fringes by stopping councils setting fixed rural-urban boundaries, and requiring them to plan for growth 30 years ahead.

Minimum floor area and balcony requirements are being abolished for apartments.

ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper explains the benefits of these changes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Very so ba our senior political correspondence with us right now, Hey, Barry,
just the other micro didn't doing the same thing as
as Darcy did earlier, Roll microphone. I think this is
a problem. We're going to fix the We're going to
fix this ourselves. This is a setup problem. This is
not your problem. So I apologize for that, Barry. I
apologize for us embarrassing you like that.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, well, Darcy didn't sound too embarrassed, neither of us.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Since it's not my fault, not even a shame of
the Hey, the housing shakeup's going to prove controversial, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, it is, but anything would be better than key
we build, I suppose. But I think the main thing
that's getting attention is getting rid of minimum floor areas
and balcony requirements for apartments and rules to allow cities
to extend outwards at the fringes. And I think extending
outwards is actually what cities have been very reluctant to

(00:54):
do in the past, and I think it's a really
good thing. I mean, you can't confine as city and say,
like Labour saw, the answer was density, high density in cities.
But people don't want to live on top of each
other unless you're in an apartment, and there's nothing wrong
in living in an apartment. The christ Bishop, the Housing minister,

(01:18):
he says the government rejects the view that said he
can cidies can only grow outwards, they can grow up
as well, and to that end, he's talking about apartments. Interestingly,
there was one comment that he made and I'm just
not quite sure how they're going to achieve this. He
said these city fringe changes would mean people could build

(01:38):
there as long as they covered the costs of associated
associated infrastructure. I'm not quite sure how that works. I
guess it's developers that developers want to like Drury, want
to develop an area, then I've got to look after
the orchestructure. The council's job.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
So it has been the responsibility of the council to
do all pipework and all that kind of stuff. And
so what he's saying is the developers have to do
this right.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
So I see that, but I guess that could be
something of a problem because infrastructure usually is a council's responsibility.
So development, I'll.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Tell you what the developers can make the money. The
books balances still make a buck out of it. They'll
be doing it those pipes as fast as you possibly can.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah. Well, councils are now being told by central government
what's expected of them when it comes to the likes
of apartments. Here's Chris Bishop.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Evidence from twenty fifteen shows them in the Auckland market.
For example, balcony size requirements increase the cost of an
apartment by forty to seventy thousand dollars per unit. We
will therefore remove the ability for counselors to set rules
or guidelines that require balconies or flaw areas to be
of a minimum size. Developers will still be able to
size dwellings and choose to provide balconies as they and

(02:51):
their customers see fit, provided they can fly with national
building standards. You sometimes hear people complain about all of
these shoeba apartments and you know, I agree they're not
the right housing solution for everyone. But you know what's
smaller than a shoe box apartment? Cars and tents that
people are living in right now in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
See, And that's a very good point. Actually, that isn't
it better? I guess though, if you're living in a
car or an attent. You really haven't got any money
that you could ever put towards a house or even
an apartment, So you know, I mean it's all very idealistic,
but you know in shoe box apartments aren't the most attractive.

(03:32):
But at least it's the old story. It's a roof
over your head.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Absolutely couldn't agree more. Hey, what do you make of
this mental health funder the governments announced again?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's going to be really interesting. Targets have been set
and eighty percent of people they tell us are will
be able to access special mental health and addiction services
within three weeks, and ninety five percent of mental health
and addict and related emergency department presentations they'll be seen

(04:05):
within three hours. Now, that's very idealistic. And they've put
ten million dollars a fund for mental health care innovation.
But it made it got me thinking about what happened
to that massive fund that was announced by Labor back
in twenty nineteen, one point nine billion dollars for mental health. Well,

(04:30):
looking into it, it's hard to see, well, it's not
hard to see where the money went. It didn't go well,
it didn't go into mental health. It did go somewhere
one point one billion of it went into the general
health system, so it went across the board of health system,
not to mental health. The rest has been spread across

(04:51):
a wide range of government agencies, and I find this interesting. Corrections, housing,
urban development, and the middle history of social development, courts,
the Rural Commission of Inquiry into Abuse and Care. Really
that's where the money went. And this was well, it's
a bit like the COVID fund that the Labor Party

(05:13):
said and said it's going to be spent on COVID
related issues. Well it will spend on well, it will
spend Some of it was spent on that, but certainly
not the lot of it. They farmed it out to
other areas of need. Fascinating.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Steff Barry, thank you very much, really appreciate it. That's
Barry so for senior political correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
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