Phil Mauger: Christchurch Mayor on a fifth of the country's new build consents being in Canterbury

There's no surprise from the Christchurch Mayor that construction is booming in Canterbury. 

The region's councils consented about 6,500 homes in the year to November – a fifth of the country's new builds. 

The number of consents in Christchurch was also triple Wellington's. 

Phil Mauger told Ryan Bridge there's been a billion-dollars worth of new homes built in Christchurch – half being units, townhouses, or apartments. 

He says they're aiming for 20-thousand more people in the central city. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Building is booming, at least in christ Church one out
of every five new builds in New Zealand right now
coming from the Canterbury catchment. The Garden City leads the
way with consents as well, outperforming Auckland and triple the
rate of Wellington. Film Major's christ Church is me a
good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Wait, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm good, thank you? What are you doing right?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Ah? Where everyone in the country is waking up to
the fact that we've all known how good christ Church, well,
not so much christ Church and Canbury. Canterbury is the
place to be. It's we've now We did used to
have after COVID eight eight hundred consents, but it was
manic then and put a lot of pressure on our

(00:42):
consents teams over everywhere for building consents because you don't
just whip down to your local trade staff shop and
grab an armful of consenting people. So we were under
a lot of pressure. But it's it's back GoF to
six thousand, five hundred, which is still better than every
everywhere else and it's it's a pleasure. What's good for
Canbry is good for christ Church. You have more people

(01:02):
in the city, it helps hospitality, that's good for everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Are you are we talking houses or are we talking
apartments and townhouses and things?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Over fifty percent of the ones in christ Jute we
had nearly a billion dollars worth of stuff, is talking
christ Chuge Now in christ Churche a billion dollars worth
of new homes and half of those were units, townhouses
or apartments. And we want more people in the central city,
which is good. We had a name we wanted a
twenty thousand and we're not there yet, but this sort

(01:35):
of stuff really helps.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Where are you at with the twenty thousand goal?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think a while ago is about nine. I think
we must be looking about twelve to thirteen. I'm not
sure I should check, but it is getting there is good.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
And how's your infrastructure holding up? Because that's often one
of the problems when you go fast, you can't keep up.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Underground, there's always pressure. We've we've got a lot of
stuff repaired after the earthquake, which was good, even though
it's struggles. But the roading infrastructure is not bad because
down from Rollinston into town and Rangura into town we've
got some lovely new motorways built a number of years ago.

(02:14):
And that's helping people get here. But it's it's of course,
it's the water, it's a sur it's everything like that.
And I'm pretty happy we're keeping on top of it.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So what's happened to the truck the trailer that you moved,
the one that went viral?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Did ever? I can't believe that people read it so much.
But anyway, all I did was move at two hundred
meters down the road just to get it out of
this line of sight of this this poor guy that
got his visual you know, his outlook all ruined.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yes, is it still there now?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
No? No, it got picked up by the finance company
and it's I believe it's gone to an auction house
to get rid of.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Oh right, okay, so that's gone. So basically, it took
you eight months of in action. It took you coming
and turning a thing on and moving it to get
it moving again, and now s gone altogether, nineteen after
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