National slammed by its own report on housing red tape

National has just been slammed by the report it commissioned on land use regulations, says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Superu’s report, Quantifying the impact of land use regulation, says what should be absolutely obvious: red tape has caused a housing crisis,” says Mr Seymour.

“The report identifies red tape around land use as the single biggest component of housing costs. In fact, the report calculates that in Auckland, land use regulations form 56% of the cost of housing. In other words, if we scrapped rules telling people where and what they’re allowed to build, Auckland homes would be half their current prices.

“We know that housing costs are the single largest cause of poverty and inequality in New Zealand. And we’re finally reaching a consensus that red tape drives housing costs.

“But National on its own won’t fix this problem. In 2007 John Key identified housing costs as a crisis and prioritised urgent reform of the Resource Management Act. Instead, we got a shambolic deal with the Maori Party that introduced new bureaucracy to consenting processes. Just one extra ACT MP could have prevented this.

“Only ACT has credibility on shredding red tape and getting homes built. For years now we’ve said we need to Resource Management Act and start from scratch. And we’d abolish the Rural-Urban Boundary, which essentially draws a line around Auckland, beyond which thou shalt not built. It’s madness to ban people from building homes during a chronic housing shortage.

“With five ACT MPs, we will reform restrictive land use laws and restore affordability to a housing market gone mad.”

ENDS

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