Former National MP Christine Fletcher has condemned Minister Chris Bishop’s proposed housing fix for Auckland, labelling his inflated targets “bully-boyish” and his RMA reforms “blunt and disproportionate”.
The attack, in a column published in today’s Herald, argues the Government’s housing policies risk destroying the city’s heritage character and undermining Auckland’s protected volcanic viewshafts.
“They position our unique isthmus to be obliterated, our maunga surrounded by towers and cookie-cutter urban landscapes.”
Bishop has responded, saying he would ignore the personal jibes, and dismissing the Mt Eden councillor and former mayor’s comments as “hyperbole”.
In today’s Herald column, co-penned with Ōrākei Local Board member Troy Churton, Fletcher warned that Auckland’s suburban and cultural diversity was “on the brink of a goofy, politically-imposed collapse”.
“We normally value a centre-right Government,” said the pair, who are members of the National Party’s de facto local government wing in Auckland, Communities and Residents.
They warned their constituents of the consequences from Bishop’s “excessive”, “vain” and “steamroller fix from Lower Hutt”.
“Bishop will be the political bully historians recall for destroying Auckland’s character area, heritage, and ending the coast-to-volcanic viewshaft amenity our city had prided itself on.
“National’s continued erosion of local governance and its setting of housing targets, driven by Chris Bishop, is as bully-boyish as it comes,” they said.
The article represents the views of the two politicians, not the council or the local board.
It comes as the city wrestles with high house prices and falling rates of home ownership.
While some pundits warn that promoting more intensification could destroy the city’s special character areas, others argue we need to free up land, loosen restrictions and build more affordable terraced-style housing to cater for demand.
Bishop said it was easy to write a column, but Fletcher had never sought a meeting with him to discuss the matter, and when he met with the council recently, she didn’t raise the housing issue.
“Hyperbole aside, the column is littered with factual inaccuracies,“ Bishop said. ”For example, the Government has not set housing targets yet.
“The simple reality is that housing in Auckland is some of the most expensive in the developed world and is holding the city back. The answer is to build more houses - and that’s what our planning reforms will enable.
“It’s actually that simple. I hope one day she can see that,” Bishop said.
The pair of local politicians were responding to directives from Bishop, who holds the housing and RMA reform portfolios, for greater density across the city, including “much, much higher” buildings of up to 15 storeys around City Rail Link stations.
The Government has given the council until October 10 to finalise a plan to enable greater density.
As part of negotiations, Bishop has allowed the council to opt out of the previous Government’s Medium Density Residential Standard (MDRS) for builds of three homes of up to three storeys high on most sites - a move supported by Fletcher, an MP from 1990 to 1999, and Churton.
The pair noted that the Auckland Unitary Plan allowed for the development of about 900,000 new homes, but said Bishop was proposing a capacity for 2 million “feasible” homes over the next century.
They believed this was an excessive growth target that would require unlocking large areas of land with infrastructure constraints.
“Bishop’s demand-based growth targets create a strong risk of oversupply and over-investment, ruining character areas in the process,” Fletcher and Churton said.
“His prescriptive RMA amendments are blunt and disproportionate, spawning intended consequences without quality.“
Today, the pair said Auckland was supporting intensification through significant changes to the Unitary Plan, including along corridors.
“Auckland should be planned by Auckland councillors and local boards for Auckland, not by Lower Hutt and Wellington housing idealists like Bishop,” they said.
In 2021, Fletcher landed herself in hot water after likening Labour and National’s then housing policy for Auckland to “gang rape”.
“Councillor Fletcher’s views on housing are well known, given her previous use of disgusting and offensive terms to describe housing intensification in Auckland,” Bishop said.
“I am unsurprised that she believes more housing in Auckland could result in an ‘oppressive, politically-imposed collapse’.”
The Herald reported this month that 100,000 homes had been built since higher-density planning rules came into force in 2016.
Auckland Council’s chief economist Gary Blick said housing supply was showing good signs of meeting population growth, but affordability was still not great.
Blick said the median price for a house in Auckland was now about $1 million, or 7.5 times the median household income. In 2000, houses cost about five times the median household income.
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