Proposed bill aims to boost housing supply
Hamilton City Council has slammed the new housing reforms proposed by the New Zealand Labour and National Parties to boost supply across the country.
Last month, Minister of Housing Megan Woods and Minister for the Environment David Parker announced a joint-housing policy that aims to build up to three homes of up to three storeys in cities without needing resource consent. The proposed policy also brings forward the implementation of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) by at least a year to cut the red tape that blocks housing development.
While the proposed rules look promising amid the housing crisis in New Zealand, some claimed that the government’s move to increase housing stock by allowing for much more intensification is “fundamentally flawed.”
In a submission sent to the Parliament’s Environment Select Committee, the Hamilton City Council has urged the government to withdraw the proposed bill because it is in “direct conflict” with the council’s strategic growth planning and even some of the government’s policies.
Hamilton City Council General Manager Growth Blair Bowcott said the council’s planning staff argued that the bill “has been rushed through with no detailed analysis, robust engagement, or clear understanding of unintended consequences.”
In addition, Bowcott claimed that the bill creates a “fundamental disconnect” between land use and infrastructure planning and has been put together without detailed analysis or any engagement with the local government, iwi, or residents of cities and towns potentially impacted.
Read more: Government announces reforms to boost housing supply
Waipa District Council, Waikato District Council, Waikato Regional Council, Waikato-Tainui Waikato River Authority, and ACT New Zealand (ACT) shared Hamilton City Council’s views.
Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate said the councils admitted that Hamilton needs more housing stock. However, “allowing three-storey buildings to go up like wildfire across the city will not deliver better homes. The intent might be good, but there will be perverse and very poor outcomes from these proposals if they go ahead.”
Meanwhile, ACT previously said Labour and National are “in danger of failing to deliver on their promise while creating division and resentment in the community.”
“Unfortunately, their solution ignores the real problem of infrastructure funding, and the price of working secretly together is that they couldn’t work with anyone else,” said ACT Leader David Seymour.
The political party wrote to Labour and National outlining three policies that could improve their joint-housing policy: GST sharing, public-private partnerships, and abandoning the MDRS, then using the existing Auckland MHS Zone.
