RMA Reform and Housing Minister Chris Bishop, kitted up for a convo with "character housing" advocate, Councillor Christine Fletcher. Photo / Michael Craig
This is a transcript of Simon Wilson’s weekly newsletter Love this City – exploring the ideas and events, the reality and the potential of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
We don’t need two million homes, so why is Auckland Council planning for them? It’s one of the big questions coming from Councillor Christine Fletcher and others about the proposed new plan change council voted on this week.
As the public debate begins again over how many homes we need and where they should go, the simple answer is: Capacity does not mean supply.
Council officials and the Government have both done their best in recent days to explain what this means. But the council’s new plan change will enable the provision of two million homes in Auckland. In the foreseeable future, we’re not going to need anything like that. Why so many?
To back up. Auckland Council voted on Thursday, with only two dissenting voices, to consult on a new draft housing plan with local boards, iwi and Government agencies, before it votes formally on September 24 to adopt the plan for full public consultation.
The timetable is not the council’s, which would have much preferred a slower track, but has been required by the Government. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop is determined to unlock the housing growth potential of the city, without delay – even if, as Housing Minister, he has also abandoned social-housing projects, undermining the construction industry in the process.
The timetable means the new plan will be adopted (or not) by the council at a special meeting just one day before its last ordinary meeting of the term. If adopted, the incoming councillors, around half of whom could feasibly be new, will handle the consultation and the way forward.
The new plan removes the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS), which allow “3x3 development”: three-storey homes on every section, which themselves can be divided in three, “right the way to the urban edge”, as council planner John Duguid put it on Thursday.
Greater density will now be focused on town centres, land around train and rapid bus stations, and along some main roads.
The plan also tightens the rules for building in areas with “natural hazards”, mainly coastal areas and flood-prone land.
Among the many questions the new plan raises, perhaps the biggest is about the provision for two million homes.
Auckland currently has about 550,000 dwellings for a population of 1.7 million. At that ratio, two million homes would house more than six million people. The official projection for the city’s population by 2050 is 2.5 million. Much less.
The Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP), which the MDRS overrode and which this new plan change will also override, allowed for 900,000 homes.
Some opponents of the plan change and of the MDRS before it say even 900,000 was too many. If Auckland built 10,000 homes a year from now until 2050, a figure far larger than was achieved even under the last Government’s building boom, that would still be only 800,000 homes.
But this argument demonstrates a misunderstanding of how cities have to be planned. It was councillor Angela Dalton who said on Thursday, “Capacity does not mean supply.”
The council’s economist Gary Blick said much the same: “The key isn’t capacity, it’s suppliers taking it up.”
If the council rezones your suburban street for six-storey apartments, it doesn’t mean they will be built. Existing owners may not want to sell. Developers may not want to buy. Developers who do buy may build three-storey terraced housing instead. Property owners prevail. The market rules.
Related to this, enabling greater capacity in the plans than is needed is also critical for keeping house prices under control.
As Blick explained, land is always the greatest single cost in construction. If you zone only small areas for density, the value of that land skyrockets. That means the price of the apartments skyrockets too.
This was one of the main reasons the MDRS was introduced. By zoning all housing land for 3x3 density, it eliminated the chance there would be a premium on rezoned land.
Now the MDRS is likely to go, the minister has insisted that the new plan allows for at least the same number of homes: that’s where the two million comes from.
Bishop has repeatedly said he wants to see house prices fall. He’ll be unpopular among many of his colleagues for that: Sir John Key explained recently that his whole political strategy was based on keeping house prices rising.
But Bishop is right: planning rules allowing widespread development are essential for the supply of affordable new homes. Which we desperately need. He’s also right, as he told RNZ on Friday, that the more affordable homes we build, the greater our capacity to deal with homelessness.
The details of the plans – exactly what can be built where and in what numbers – are still being revealed. Watch this space.
Mayoral candidate Kerrin Leoni released her transport policy on Thursday morning, standing outside the Waitematā railway station. Currently the councillor for the Whau ward, which is centred on Avondale and New Lynn, Leoni has focused the policy on trains.
“No more weekend shutdowns,” she said, referring to KiwiRail’s programme of closures for maintenance and upgrades. That programme has also closed the network over the New Year period, when train use is at its lowest.
KiwiRail has been doing this so the network will be fully up to speed by the time the City Rail Link opens next year, when there will be many more trains on the lines.
The mayor doesn’t actually have the power to stop KiwiRail closing lines, but if she did, and those closures ended, how would Leoni ensure the network is ready in time?
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I think they can do better.”
Does she have another option instead of closing during the periods of least use, or is this just a wish?
“You’re right, it’s a wish, but I think they can. I need to sit down with them.”
How does her transport vision differ from incumbent mayor Wayne Brown’s?
“He doesn’t have a vision.” In her policy document, she says, “Brown’s big ideas are complaining about Wellington, counting traffic cones, and tinkering with traffic lights.”
Road congestion is probably the transport issue that annoys Aucklanders the most. Would Leoni clear car parks off arterial roads, so they’re more efficient?
“I haven’t thought about that.”
Does she have any other ideas about how to make the roads more efficient?
“I haven’t focused on that.”
But she does want to restart the rail service from Swanson to Huapai, and it will be a “day one priority” to convene an Airport Rail Summit.
Leoni confirmed she had already decided a rail service to the airport would be a new heavy rail line from Puhinui, which is an interchange station on the Southern Line. Trains from the city currently transfer passengers there to airport buses that run in their own dedicated lanes every 10 minutes.
Voting packs will start arriving in letterboxes from September 9.
Big smiles all round at the Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in Māngere on Wednesday night, as Te Pāti Māori candidate Oriini Kaipara and Labour Party candidate Peeni Henare fronted up for a “debate” in their quest to become the next MP for Tāmaki Makaurau.
Kaipara wore black with a raspberry beret and a party T-shirt; Henare wore black with a flat cap and red party fleece.
“Vote for me and you get us both,” Kaipara told the crowd of about 100. “We look good together.”
Labour and TPM are the only parties in Parliament contesting this election and it means a lot to both of them.
Seats were reserved for Labour on the left of the whare and TPM on the right (or the other way around viewed from the front, so read nothing into it), with the largest bloc in the middle allocated to the uncommitted. On the whole, the place seemed full of people who probably would have been happy with either candidate.
Both candidates were furious at Education Minister Erica Stanford for her decision to take words in te reo out of a new-entrant school reader.
“It’s an attack on te reo and it does feel personal,” said Kaipara, who grew up in the kohanga reo and kura kaupapa system.
“What this Government is doing,” said Henare, “is trying to strip us of our mana, our health, our culture. This is the latest example.”
And that wasn’t all of it. They were also angry at what they saw as the minister’s ignorance of te reo and how language is learned.
“Taking out those words is almost like stealing kai,” said Kaipara. “It is stealing kai. Children aren’t confused by two languages, that’s the sort of thing said by someone who is afraid of change.”
“The horse has bolted,” said Henare.”Mahi, whānau, waka, kai, mokopuna, these are words that everyone already knows. The kids already know them.”
Kaipara said when she was in kohanga reo, no one knew if teaching te reo would have a future. “But now it’s in such hot demand, they can’t keep up.”
Labour kaumatua Willie Jackson was the host – it’s his family marae – and he treated everyone there as whānau. “Oriini,” he said, “it’s a shame you didn’t stand for Labour.”
He made special mention of his mate John Tamihere, now the TPM president but once a Labour MP. “A warm welcome to JT,” said Jackson. “I remember when he came here to sell the foreshore and seabed.”
“That was Labour!” called someone, quite possibly TPM co-leader Rawiri Waititi.
It was Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 which led then-minister Tariana Turia to resign from Labour and Parliament, win a byelection and go on to form the Māori Party.
As reported, Henare said he would like to see the ban on gang patches reversed. He’s said since that he was speaking personally, and it’s certainly not credible he was announcing party policy. Still, it was an odd thing for him to say.
His deeper observation was that there were lessons to learn from the past 10 years. “No more pouring dollars into a black hole in Wellington. Funding has to go to communities and ultimately the Government has to get out of the way.”
Whether by supercharging Whānau Ora or with a range of other initiatives, he did not say. No policy announcements there, either.
Kaipara also had a radical proposal. “There are 230,000 empty homes in Auckland. Two houses for every person without a home now. That’s a solution to a problem right there.”
Both were clear that Māori had not ceded sovereignty when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi, with Henare saying his own father was one of the rangatira who took the case to the Waitangi Tribunal. “I was raised on that.”
The evening’s moderator, broadcaster Dale Husband, asked him why Labour wouldn’t announce a tax policy.
But Henare really wasn’t announcing policies. He said he knew the whare was full of people who enjoyed a game of euchre. “You don’t tell anyone if you’ve got the right bower or the left bower,” he said. “You play your cards when the right time comes.” Got a big laugh.
When perennial disruptor Karl Mokaraka stormed the microphones with a cardboard cutout of Vision NZ’s candidate Hannah Tamaki, Jackson was ready with a few blokes to bundle him out. Mokaraka clung briefly to one of the centre poles, before giving up. Kaipara, a kapa haka veteran with a mesmerising voice, led everyone in a waiata.
Summing up, Henare quoted his grandfather, Sir James Henare: “We have come too far not to go farther, done too much not to do more.”
Kaipara quoted Rewi Maniapoto: “Ka whawhai tonu.” Keep fighting.
But she also said, “Fighting is not who we really are,” and quoted the Bible: “Mutu ake i reira.” The affliction will stop there. We do things with respect, but we’re determined to do them.
Byelection day is September 6.
Deputy mayor Desley Simpson’s revenue committee had its final meeting last week, quietly dropping the news its “value for money” savings drive has reduced spending by $418m over the three-year term of this council. That’s $44m more than the budgeted target.
Simpson says the savings come from “a combination of cost efficiencies, value-for-money initiatives and improvements to non-rates revenue”. Without them, she says, rates would have been about 6% higher.
She also says the news is going to get “even better”: the sale of non-strategic assets will push the savings figure over half a billion dollars.
The value-for-money programme was introduced by Mayor Phil Goff and continued by Wayne Brown, with both mayors installing Simpson as its guardian. She says the savings of the current term have been the largest ever achieved by Auckland Council, but hints that there is even bigger news to come.
The new fast-track rules have produced their first consented project: it’s the Port of Auckland wharf expansion project.
The works will include a new reinforced concrete-piled wharf, extending Bledisloe Wharf 34 metres into the harbour. Most of that distance is already enclosed by two “dolphin” extensions at each side.
With a new cruise passenger terminal and other upgrades, this will enable large cruise ships to berth at the end of Bledisloe. There will also be an extension of Fergusson Wharf to the east, intended to improve the efficiency of the container operation.
Under the Fast-track Approvals Act, the application was assessed and approved with conditions by an independent expert panel. How fast was it? The Government says the decision “took 66 working days after the panel was convened to consider the substantive application”.
Work is expected to start next month.
Meanwhile, 148 other projects named in the act are in the pipeline, although only 10 are in front of an expert panel, with another three close to that stage. In Auckland, they include several big greenfield residential projects and some quarries.
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