Johanna King: RMA lawyer on the Government allowing more housing to be built on productive land

The Government's made several housing announcements today - including allocating $100 million to be lent to developers for housing infrastructure on the outskirts of cities.  

Minister Chris Bishop also confirms the Government will cut RMA red tape limiting development on new land. 

He says the housing crisis is holding us back economically and socially.

RMA lawyer Johanna King says these changes could work out for farmers - who can build extra spaces on their land without restrictions getting in the way.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now. As I mentioned at the start of the show,
the Housing Minister is going to open up a whole
swath of New Zealand land for housing developments. Basically, what
the argument is, we can only do so much with
our food. We need places to live. All the land
in New Zealand is rated on an eight point scale.
One is the best, eight is rubbish. At the moment.

(00:21):
You can build on one, you sorry can't build on one,
two or three, as that land is considered two good
for growing things on. Chris Bishop is going to leave
one and two alone, but he's keen to allow some
building on three, which is significant because three makes up
two thirds of all of this land. Johannah King is

(00:42):
the RMA lawyer, senior Associate at Taverndale and Partners, and
she's with me to talk us through the detail of
this tonight. Johannah, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Good evening, Ryan. How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, good, thank you. I heard you've been at Field days.
How's it been we.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Have, It's been greater here actually though the rain's just
crept in and so we've timed.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
It right nice. I'm glad you had a good day.
Tell us about the land that the ministers referring to here.
How much are we talking about? How significant is this?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, these Class three soils that there are in quite
a few places actually, Ryan So I mean places like
south of Bukakoi. We've got the whited Upper Manowitou, Theams,
places like Wayouku. Also a lot in the South Island
with mid Canterabrien ash Burton blend him in Southland.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
You mentioned some figures before and I don't doubt that
those are on the money.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
So there's a lot of land here, but it is
those Class three soils you were talking about. So we've
still got some decent, some good land to do with farming.
But it's all it's all potentially coming up for up
for grabs.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
That's the thing. So the minister has said, not that
we'll throw the baby out with the bath water. He's
coming up with this new idea of special agricultural zones
which are going to consult on. So if the land,
if some of this land is all together, you know,
and we're talking you mentioned Pokakoe or hot A Fenoa,
this agricultural land is altogether, then that would be get

(02:09):
a special protection. But could this potentially benefit farmers who
have just a little bit of Level three land and
they want to build on it and at the moment
they can't. Is that a potential here?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yes, I think that is a potential. Ryan.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
We're actually seeing a fair bit of that here in Kenterbury,
where you might have farmers who have some Class one,
two and three across farm and they can't currently say
subdivided piece off for mum and dad to retire onto
or something like that. So there have been some outcomes
that have been quite difficult to reconcile with what our
farmers need and want down here. But certainly yeah, we're

(02:48):
seeing we would see that change in future if this
all comes through those.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Agricultural protection areas.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
It will be good to see that consultation go ahead
because there could well be some good areas do afford
that protection with Class three to be bundled together with
existing Class one and two. So it will be good
to see that process play out.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Is there a risk we could build right on top
of productive soil that would be better used for growing something.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, look, that's the golden question, isn't it. I think
that's always a risk Brian.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Once we have land that goes into lifestyle blocks, or
into residential housing. It's virtually impossible to revert back into
land grower for growing use, so there's always a cost
benefit analysis to be done. But in saying that, also
we've got to remember there's a lot of innovation happening
in the primary sector. There's also a lot of farmers

(03:41):
doing a lot more with Class four soils as well,
so we could see that we maximize more with what
we have, things like vertical gardening and all that sort.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Of thing could become. It could be quite as good
salve on all this as well.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, I was going to mean, well, I didn't want
to mention it because people don't like the idea, but
vertical gut. I mean, we may not even need any
any level one, two or three soil.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
It's a tricky one, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
But I think we've got to have a lot of
levers to pull in certain sort of options, and I
think the more innovation that happens, the more options.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
We will have.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Nice one, Johannah, I'm going and enjoy the rest of
your rainy field days. We appreciate you being with us.
Thanks very much, Ryan, Johannah King, who's the rm A
lawyer Senior associate at Taverndale and Partners.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
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Speaker 1 (04:33):
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