In short and as one said in Parliament: Time to Cut The Crap

 

Those were the firing lines from Auckland Development Committee Chair and Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse in relation to the Auckland housing situation.

 

Our Deputy Mayor is well grounded in the reality of Auckland’s housing situation, more so than the Mayor is seems eternally optimistic which borders down right foolhardy. In short there is no magic bullet situation to housing in the big city. Just opening up land or building 10,000 state homes will simply not work where there are other levers needing to be pulled or pushed as well.

In saying that I never said the situation is not overly complex either thus solutions are pretty straight forward when all thrown into the mix. It just needs political ideology dumped in the tip and both vision and pragmatism to be at the forefront.

 

I hear and support our Deputy Mayor in needing that cross-party Housing Accord. Why? Because since 2011 when the Auckland Plan (currently operative) was written Deputy Mayor Hulse was very switched on to reality and needs. An aspect that fast earned my respect towards Hulse as citizen, ratepayer, and commentator.

Back then Hulse said multiple factors came into play and the need for Auckland Council, the Waikato Councils, and Central Government to work and develop an inter-regional plan was critical.

Hulse then knew that even with the 60:40 Brownfield : Greenfield urban development mix in the Auckland and later Unitary Plans that it would not be enough to effectively handle Auckland’s growth (both residential and industrial). The Waikato would need to step up and (with help from Central Government to build the State Highways AND Rail links needed) establish satellite centres to allow both housing and when demand warrants heavy industrial complexes.

Why?

To help balance the load in an overheated Auckland while “growing” a depressed Waikato. So in effect win-win for all. You can even do this for Auckland-Northland as well.

 

So a true Cross-Party Accord would be with Auckland, the Waikato, Northland, and Central Government to help the housing situation in Auckland while giving a jump-start to Auckland’s neighbours for reasons I mentioned above.

 

Of course the Accord will still need to deal with housing in Auckland as we continue to grow and lead all growth (good and bad). This leads to the question on how an Accord would apply to Auckland. The answer to that is rather straight forward but requires ideology to be buried in that tip.

This is how I would approach it:

1. Unitary Plan development controls (different from building controls) are liberalised and more upzoning applied especially to the Auckland Isthmus and within a three kilometre radius to Manukau City Centre, Albany Metropolitan Centre and New Lynn Metropolitan Centre. I should not be seeing any Single Housing Zone nor even Mixed Housing Zone Suburban in those places I just mentioned. The residential zones should be all Mixed Housing Urban, and Terrace Housing and Apartment Zones
2. Both the market and The State (including Auckland Council) build the houses. For the State it would be:
   1. Housing New Zealand and Development Auckland Council Controlled Organisation work together in planning next housing area for development
   2. Council zones appropriately to area via Unitary Plan and if needed Plan Changes
   3. Housing NZ and Development Auckland CCO develop houses
   4. Houses rented out
   5. Five years later the houses are either sold out right if tenant does not want to participate in rent to buy scheme
   6. Proceeds used for next development
   7. Rinse and repeat

Of course the market will still provide around 67% of all new builds but I do not see the issue of a State building exercise at 33% to get things under control. Unless you want the Auckland housing market to go pretty much super critical and screw over the national economy.

 

There are other levers in there Central Government can use to get things back into line as well. More enforcement of Capital Gains Tax on residential property sold within two years of purchase and/or for profit is one mechanism. Another mechanism is a 1% Land Tax on the rateable land value to blank or rather vacant property – to be charged annually. The idea behind that is not to entirely deter land banking as often some is needed to bring developments into the pipeline. But rather server as a “reminder” that land banking for speculation only is not acceptable.

 

In the end though a multi-party non partisan accord between all parties (Local, Regional and Central) needs to happen to the point it should have happened four years ago when the Auckland Plan was being written.

To play continued blind ideology by any of the parties is beyond dunce cap material and voters should be holding the fire under the backsides to those playing the ideology trumping pragmatism game.

Unless you want a “correct” to the level the USA faced coming back onto the national economy. Negative equity hurts folks just ask the Americans.

 

The full interview with Hulse can be seen here:

http://www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/thenation/interview-penny-hulse-2015041109