Joyce said Christchurch was able to recover "dramatically" in the housing space following the 2011 earthquakes thanks to Environment Canterbury commissioners at the time releasing land not only in Christchurch, but Selwyn and Rangiora too.
He said the same thing has to be done in Auckland.
"Auckland's housing problems are a regulatory issue, primarily, and [the result of] a long period of under investment in housing which was caused by a strangling of red tape."
Prior to the amalgamation of the Super City, local regional authorities were suing each other to a standstill, he said, causing a backlog of regulatory issues.
"Remember when we came in and put the Super City together, one of the key things was that the eight local regional authorities had been suing each other for years over the interpretation of the metropolitan urban limit," he said.
"So we're dealing with a backlog of regulatory issues, and we are still perhaps getting pretty frustrated with the Council, more generally, that actually that they have not yet got the bull by the horns in terms of supplying enough land."
Following the Budget announcement yesterday, Joyce said cities and metropolitan areas would be provided with adequate land and higher margins so there would be an incentive for developers to take land to the market.
"It's a pretty serious direction," he said.
