Kerre Woodham: We need more homes but we need to do it properly

The Government will officially announce this morning a plan “to flood the market” with land for development in a bid to end New Zealand's housing crisis. Chris Bishop will use a speech to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand later this morning, to announce a slew of changes to New Zealand's planning laws.  He wants to flood the market with affordable land to develop and to make it easier and cheaper to develop that land into housing as he told Mike Hosking this morning. 

 

CB: We're going to let cities grow, Mike, it's really important. We've got a housing crisis. We need to allow our cities to grow. We need to get rid of the Auckland metropolitan urban limit. Let Auckland grow out at the fringe, but also do sensible density around transit corridors and around our train stations. More apartments by train stations, more mixed-use zoning, let our cities grow and get on top of this multi-generational problem of housing affordability. 

MH: Is this mainly metropolitan? Rural New Zealand, provincial New Zealand doesn't really need to worry about any of this, cause it's not really a problem for them or not? 

CB: Yeah, what we call tier one and two cities, so Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, Hamilton, Tauranga, we're not talking about provincial and, and regional rural councils, you know, they've got growth ambitions as well, but we're really talking about our big cities.   

 

Excellent. We need more homes. The lack of affordable housing has left a generation feeling locked out of home ownership and the lack of social housing has led to a myriad of social problems.  

But. But. But. There must be protections for future homeowners around the quality of the builds for the community, for all of us who call a city home. Just look around Auckland City if you've visited, if you live here, so many of the apartments chucked up in the 90s are aesthetically abhorrent. They are not fit for purpose. There was no thought put into building them, just chucking them up to basically factory farm people. There must be some rules around what developers can build and how they build. Green spaces, community spaces, homes, just as a basic, that don't leak or have bits drop off into the street. Parkwood Apartments, City Garden Apartments, Victopia, Harbour Oaks, The Pulse, Westmount, St Lukes Gardens, Stonefield villas, that is on the first 2 seconds of a Google search of Auckland apartments that need to be remediated. And the human misery that goes along with sinking your money into a spanking new apartment, only to have it fall around your ears a decade later cannot be overestimated.  

So fine, do quality apartments with community spaces, green spaces, that allow for people to live in them. Not just shelter overnight but to live in them. And to live in them for as long as they want, not have to move out while dangerous buildings are repaired. There has got to be some comeback on the developers. So that is one concern.  

The other is the idea of moving beyond the city limits. I mean, Auckland is a great sprawling metropolis anyway, it's just about at Hamilton already. Wellington, the geography sort of precludes you from sprawling, but you're certainly inching your way out there. Urban areas expanded by 15% from 1996 to 2018, with 83% of that land converted from farmland. The area of highly productive land lost to housing increased by 54% between 2002 and 2019. And market pressures (this is a story from 2021) will increase with more demand as the population grows here and overseas. Only about 15% of land is flat with good soil and climate, that makes it ideal for food production, which means it needs lesser irrigation and fertilizers. The Ministr

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Mornings podcast from newstalksd B.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The government will officially announce this morning a plan to
flood the market quote unquote with land for development in
a bid to end New Zealand's housing crisis. Chris Bishop
will use a speech to the Real Estate Institute of
New Zealand later this morning to announce a slew of
changes to New Zealand's planning laws. He wants to flood

(00:32):
the market with affordable land to develop and to make
it easier and cheaper to develop that land into housing.
As he told make costing this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
We're going to let cities grow. It's really important. We've
got a housing crisis. We need to allow our cities
to grow. We need to get rid of the Aukland
metropolitan urban limit. Let or can grow out at the fringe,
but also do sensible density around the transit corridors and
around our train stations. More apartments by train stations, more
mixed use owning. Let our cities grow and get on
top of this multi generational problem of housing and affordability.

(01:04):
Is this mainly metropolitan rural New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Provincial New Zealand doesn't really need to worry about any
of this because it's not really a problem for them
or not.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, what we call Tier one and two cities, So Auckland, Wellington,
christ Church, Hamilton, Toronto. We're not talking about provincial and
regional and rural councils. You know they've got growth ambitions
as well, But we're really talking about our big cities.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Excellent. We need more homes. The lack of affordable housing
has left a generation feeling locked out of home ownership,
and the lack of social housing has led to a
myriad of social problems.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
But but, but there must be protections for future homeowners
around the quality of the builds for the community, for
all of us who call.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
A city home. Just look around Auckland City if you've visited,
if you live here. So many of the apartments chucked
up in the nineties are esthetically a barrent. They are
not fit for purpose. There was no thought put into
building them, just chucking them up to basically factory farm people.

(02:14):
There must be some rules around what developers can build
and how they build green spaces, community spaces, homes you know,
just as a basic that don't leak or have bits
drop off into the Street, Parkward Apartments, City Garden Apartments, Victopia,
Harbor Oaks, the Pulse, Westmont, Saint Luke's Garden, Stonefield Villas.

(02:38):
There are that is, that is on the first two
seconds of a Google search of Auckland apartments that need
to be remediated, and the human misery that goes along
with sinking your money into a spanking you apartment only
to have it fall around your ears a decade later

(03:00):
cannot be overestimated. So fine do quality apartments with community spaces,
green spaces that allow for people to live in them,
not just shelter overnight, but to live in them and
to live in them for as long as they want,

(03:20):
not have to move out while dangerous buildings are repaired.
There has got to be some comeback on the developers.
So that is one concern. The other is the idea
of moving beyond the city limits. I mean, Auckland is
a great sprawling metropolis anyway, it's just about at Hamilton

(03:40):
already Wellington. The geography sort of precludes you from sprawling,
but you're certainly inching your way out there. Urban areas
expanded by fifteen percent from nineteen ninety six to twenty
eighteen with eighty three percent of that land converted from farmland.

(04:04):
The area of highly productive land lost to housing increased
by fifty four percent between two thousand and two and
twenty nineteen, and market pressures is a story from a
couple from twenty twenty one. Market pressures will increase with
more demand as the population grows here and overseas. Only

(04:26):
about fifteen percent of land is flat with good soil
and climate that makes it ideal for food production, which
means it needs less irrigation and fertilizers. The Ministry for
the Environment said of productive land was not available for agriculture,
it forced less suitable areas to be used, requiring more
fertilizer and more irrigation, which could then hurt the wider environment.

(04:52):
I am absolutely not against building more homes, building more apartments,
building more houses. We have to, oh, there's no two
ways about it. But we have to do it properly.
We have to recognize that if we don't do it well,
all we're doing is tacking up a problem in the

(05:14):
short term while creating a much much bigger problem down
the line. And I think future generations will have more
than enough to deal with without us giving them even
more problems.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
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