ACT reveals massive housing negligence

ACT Leader David Seymour has revealed the massive scale of potential home-building that has been blocked on the edges of Auckland.

“ACT would cut red tape to allow, at a minimum, 600,000 new homes in areas like Waitakere, Karaka, and Clevedon,” says Mr Seymour.

The figures were presented at the launch of Mr Seymour’s new book, Own Your Future, which opens with a story about a Waitakere family denied the freedom to subdivide their land and provide housing for their daughter and others, because their property lies just outside the Rural-Urban Boundary.

“By failing to open up this land like this for housing, successive Governments are guilty of gross negligence.

“Land use restrictions are now responsible for 56 per cent of the average Auckland house price, according to one of the Government’s own reports released last month.

“This cost is the single largest cause of poverty, inequality, and sickness in Auckland and beyond.

“The poorest 20 per cent of households now spend 54 per cent of their income on housing. When the RMA was passed in 1991 it was only 27 per cent. That’s why we see kids living in cars and garages, going without.
“ACT says it’s crazy to ban people from building homes during a chronic housing shortage.

“National say they’ll build 34,000 houses in Auckland over the next decade, Labour says 50,000. ACT will rezone land for hundreds of thousands.
Here is how many homes could be built if just two restricted zones were reclassified as residential:
• Countryside Living zone – 223,560 homes
• Mixed Rural Zone – 403,965 homes
• Total: 627,525 homes
These house numbers are estimated on the basis of 27 homes per hectare (the same density as the Hobsonville Point development) on just one third of each zone’s land area.
“These areas are not treasured natural landscapes. They are grassy fields with the occasional barn or horse.
“Allowing housing in these areas should be a bare minimum for any Government. Ultimately, a stronger ACT will make the Government:
• Abolish the Rural-Urban Boundary.
• Replace the Resource Management Act with planning law that requires councils to free up land as population increases.
• Fund the required infrastructure by sharing the GST on construction with councils.
“This will allow homebuilding on an epic scale, restoring per-capita building rates to what we achieved in the ‘70s. A landowner’s market will become a buyers’ and renters’ market, improving prices and quality across New Zealand’s entire housing stock.”
ENDS

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