Affordable and healthy homes

 

The housing market is failing thousands of Kiwis. Every year prices soar higher and higher, while wages stay nearly flat. That means the goal of home ownership is slipping further away for more New Zealanders, who are stuck instead in rental homes that are often damp, cold, and unhealthy.

Labour says that isn’t good enough. There are no silver bullets in an area as large and complex as housing, but Labour is determined to get stuck in and help. We will ease the burden on New Zealanders in three effective ways:

KiwiBuild

The biggest barrier to home ownership is the difficulty of getting on the first rungs of the housing ladder.Over the past 50 years the number of new affordable homes being built has dropped from a third of all new homes to just 5 per cent.

Only the government is big enough to address this problem. That’s why Labour is taking a bold hands-on approach to help Kiwis into their first home.

Labour will oversee and invest in a large-scale 10 year programme of home building focussed on modest entry-level houses for sale to first home buyers. We will partner with the private sector, community agencies and local government to build these houses.

Our target is to ramp up to building 10,000 houses a year by the end of our first term (or as swiftly as the availability of skilled labour allows), and to continue at this level for around ten years.

Most of the houses built over the first five years are likely to be in Auckland and Christchurch, while other places with high housing costs will receive the rest.

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Note I am just focusing on the supply side of the Housing Market not the demand side.

The full fact sheet can be seen here:

Some differences between National’s (and in part Auckland Council’s) Special Housing Areas, and Labour’s Kiwi Build

National in partnership with the Council are doing a level of State Intervention in the fact they are short circuiting the planning processes to allow houses to be built faster than otherwise normal. However, apart from Housing New Zealand continuing with its existing program National will not be doing full intervention insofar as embarking on a large-scale building program Labour otherwise intends. National are more inclined to work with Council to have the appropriate zones laid down, the framework set including planning regulations (aspects of the Unitary Plan), and then let the Council and developers work on providing the houses and infrastructure from there (but within the frame-work set such as in the bold red text above). The first Special Housing Areas are well advanced in Weymouth and Addison with no doubt more starting soon if not already.

With Labour they are doing with what I expect a Centre-Left party to do and have done in their history before. Looking at the fact sheets Labour (if in Government) are promoting the physical act of building houses which would be seen by Housing New Zealand (rather than left fully to the market like the SHA’s). Per Labour’s Factsheet:

Who will build the houses?

The programme will be overseen by Housing New Zealand Corporation (HNZC), but the construction will carried out by private-sector construction firms, with some social housing agencies also participating

So as I have said full state intervention compared to National. Similarly to National’s SHA’s the Labour led Kiwi Build allows for stand-alone houses and apparently apartments of various sizes. The key difference though (apart from the level of intervention) is Labour have not address the planning regime in regards to building houses.

National have addressed the planning regime through support of the Unitary Plan processes and the creation of the Special Housing Areas to allow houses and apartments to be built – in partnership with the Auckland Council. The Special Housing Areas incorporate both Greenfield and Brownfield developments within the Auckland Region. Labour on the other hand wants to build the houses but has not mentioned and/or addressed how it will adapt or cope with the planning regime especially in Auckland. There is no point trying to build houses if it does not comply with the Unitary Plan has set out for the given area. It is either disingenuous or more of a scatter gun approach compared to the Special Housing Areas on where and what types of housing will be built via Kiwi Build. Unless Labour talk to the Council real soon on preferable areas the Kiwi Build program could be very well contained to existing Housing New Zealand land unless Labour authorises HNZ to purchase more land to build these houses. I just have a feeling while National have address the supply side best it can (rest falls into Council via the planning regime) in answering all available factors short of a full building program. Labour is missing a big step in physically wanting to build houses in that we have no idea how Kiwi Build will cope with the Unitary Plan. It could get rather awkward of Kiwi Build got gummed up because someone in Labour forgot to see if its program could cope with Council’s Unitary Plan that dictates where and what houses can be built in Auckland.

For now if I had to pick between Labour’s Kiwi Build and National’s Special Housing Areas I would take the SHA’s. The Special Housing Areas (despite being more market driven than Kiwi Build) to me are the best short-term measure in addressing the housing supply side of the affordability question until the Unitary Plan comes into full effect. National via the SHA and in partnership with the Council seems to have a full road map laid out from start to end with getting more houses built while Labour have start AND finish but no middle to go from that start to that eventual finish.

Come on Labour if you really want those Government Benches you need to be a whole lot better…