Auckland floods: Region needs to stop building houses in the wrong places - David Seymour

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OPINION

After Auckland’s floods and with Cyclone Gabrielle wreaking further damage, it’s time to talk about the Labour-National housing intensification deal.

Auckland councillor Christine Fletcher has already linked the three-by-three-storey home rule, rushed through by both parties in a few weeks at the end of 2021, with flood preparedness.

Fletcher is always close to the ground on local issues, but Parliament’s three-by-three law makes it harder for local government to respond to the challenge. The law took council’s ability to co-ordinate infrastructure upgrades and intensification by effectively removing zoning from the council’s job description. ACT alone opposed it.

We know the optics of wanting more homes built is attractive, but policy needs more than political optics.

Visiting central Auckland homes affected by the floods showed me just how local and practical the problems are.

Emergency services helping with evacuations during Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods. Photo / Hayden Woodward, Fiel

The bottom line is that the rains were certainly intense, but many parts of Auckland were just fine. Other parts were not, and stormwater infrastructure made the difference. The difference was not only drain capacity, but maintenance. There’s no point in having drains that are filled with gravel.

Residents in Mt St John Ave or, more accurately, Margot St at the bottom of Mt St John, found this to their expense.

It’s good to have drainage taking water away from your house - but faulty drains can bring water to your house.

In Tawera Rd, enormous manhole covers weighing tonnes were lifted by surging water that went on to run through nearby homes.

By contrast, the enormous Stonefields development was fine. High density and built down in a former quarry, you might think it was at great risk. It was saved by excellent stormwater engineering. These and many other highly localised examples show that not all infrastructure is at the same age and stage.

Purpose-built modern development stands a better chance than the older and more haphazard. Places first developed in the early 1900s, with large areas of grass, are more vulnerable now. The grass is gone, and more roofs and downpipes feed into the same old drains, spelling disaster.

That brings us to the deal Labour and National rushed through Parliament.

New Zealand deserves a sincere attempt at dealing with unaffordable and scarce housing. But that would have involved consulting the people at the coalface. Builders, councils, developers, and the like. This was not a sincere attempt at getting more homes built, but at rehabilitating the two parties’ bad optics on housing.

Both had done it badly for decades, and they must have thought daring and dazzling would blow away doubt and opposition.

Housing Minister Megan Woods, left, announcing the housing accord with then-leader of the National Party, Judith Collins, and National's housing spokesperson Nicola Willis. Photo / Mark Mitchell, File

However, the unusual alliance meant the deal had to be kept secret. Secrecy meant nobody other than a Government department could know about the deal. Nobody hands-on could be consulted. Had they done the legwork, they would have learned that restrictive zoning does constrain housing, but is not the whole story.

In Auckland at least, the Unitary Plan already allows up to 900,000 more homes to be built. The real essence of the problem is getting zoned land, infrastructure connections, and builders and materials to all show up at the same time.

With the Auckland Unitary Plan, Auckland Council rightly focused on getting intensification done along corridors and in town centres. The logic was, it would be easier to service new development with the pipes, roads and buses required by targeting specific places.

The Labour-National three-by-three deal takes away that ability. It basically says intensification can happen anywhere, and if the pipes aren’t ready … well they’ve never really explained what happens then.

David Seymour. Photo / Mark Mitchell, File

It’s particularly surprising that National supported this idea voluntarily and enthusiastically. They normally say they oppose centralisation of power.

ACT says that, in any new government, they must have a change of heart on this matter.

At the very least, a new government must allow councils to veto forced upzoning in areas of vulnerable infrastructure. Those areas should revert to earlier plans.

Auckland Council asked for this soon after it found out about the legislation. Such a power would allow it to stop making vulnerable areas even worse.

Then there needs to be a more sincere commitment to getting homes built for the next generation. If New Zealand doesn’t sort that out then more young people will leave.

Infrastructure funding and financing for new development need more options, as we have outlined in our policy papers. One example is sharing half the GST on construction with the local council. That would equip councils with hundreds of millions of dollars to service development, and give them hundreds of millions of reasons to say yes without delay when development makes sense.

Taking planning away from the people responsible for infrastructure was always silly.

Whether you care most about getting more houses built faster, or just not getting them flooded, real change is needed.

Any new government must start by allowing councils to opt out of areas where the pipes are overloaded already, then funding them to fix and build infrastructure where it is urgently needed.

- David Seymour is the leader of the Act Party.