Troy Churton: Orākei Local Board Planning Portfolio Lead on the Government looking at changing the Auckland housing intensification plans

Some relief is being felt by Auckland's local boards as the Government looks to back-track on its housing requirements.  

The Government has mandated intensification plans for the city to open the door to two million potential homes over the next 30 years. 

But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says feedback clearly shows change is needed. 

Orākei Local Board Planning Portfolio Lead Troy Churton told Mike Hosking he'd like to see a slower, more considered approach.  

He says the plan was made to accelerate housing change, but the scale and bluntness has undermined the system. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Housing. That's going to be part of the election year debate.
Of course, now the government appear to have read the
room in Auckland. They're about to backtrack on what they
call Plan one twenty. Basically as the Council has to plan,
they were made to plan for up to two million homes.
Troy Churton is the Iraqi Local Board member and Planning
Portfolio lead. Troy, good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
What am I?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
I never understood and I don't want to bore the
rest of the country with Auckland's many and varied problems,
but I never understood how the government thought that going
two million houses wouldn't freak people out.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
No, I don't think many Auckland has understood why Minister
Bishop and lower Hut would have led such a campaign.
But what I think Aucklanders do appreciate and was courageous
of the government to recently indicate that it might look
at reviewing this, was that PC two twenty was an
attempt to accelerate change, and the Government's always been very

(00:51):
keen to accelerate change for housing on the perception that
there's some sort of housing crisis. But the scale and
the bluntness of that change as clearly under the durability
of the whole system.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Right, tell you what happened if I go to these
houses and the first thing I ask the real estate
agent is they go, what's getting built over there? And
of course their answers I would never clue. Who would
know at which point I go, I'm not buying that house.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, yeah. And if you look around, I mean there
are lots of developers who are doing developments near train
stations and arterials at the moment who are succeeding I
mean simplicity, And I can come to mind the existing
settings aren't denying housing supply. And I think the thing
that personally aggravates me is that we think that there's
a bigger problem here at play, and we can do
a much more considered process to get the settings for

(01:38):
intensification right than we are being forced to do under
PC one twenty in the law change.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Key is what sort of back down do you think
they've got it or do you think they're going to
say something that's going to further piss you off.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, I think any plan changes that are based on
a figure of housing capacity always going to be subject
to scrutiny. That what the AUP process told us was
that when you go through a slower considered, evidence based approach,
you get far better outcomes. And that's the heart of it.

(02:13):
We you know, I was in a planning workshop and
heard Mayor Brown say that maybe if the figure was
one point four million, we would have ended up with
a better outcome. But whether it's one point four or
one point six or one, it's the process that's involved
in getting the outcome which is more important. And in
my argument is that if we were to do the

(02:33):
statute required unitary plan review process, that we would have
saved millions and we would have ended up with a
far better outcome. And it's still available to the government
to go down that route. And hopefully, you know, Chris
Luxon has to be applauded in my view for acknowledging
that a reset is still on the table.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Exactly good on your Troy Well, explained Troy Jorden, who's
the IRAQI local board member. He might be my local
board member. Actually, for all I know, I think I'm
in the Isn't it pathetic that I don't know what
area are? I'm almost certain I'm in that area.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Did you vote for them?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I don't think so. Not that I didn't vote for
him or against them, but I didn't vote for the members.
I only do the mayor thing. Oh wow, there we go. Yeah, exactly.
Welcome back, Mike, so good to have you back. G
Eric is good, isn't she? And as usual, the unions
are skewing the numbers to make the situation look worse
than it really is. I don't know. All I know
is that lots of businesses have lots of vacancies. And

(03:27):
what I know also from personal experience, they had a
couple of teachers who left a school last year, and
they left a school because they are sick of the school.
It's the individual school. Now they've all gone and got
jobs and they're perfectly happy moving forward. But you've got
to also look at the individual circumstances around the school,
and as Erica pointed out, there are certain regions that
have always been hard to staff and hard to staff
in everything far less teaching.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio