Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
You have to take positive steps to encourage intensification, and that means density and building restrictions in areas where intensification is desired have to be loosened.
You mean many of the things that are proposed for the Unitary Plan, then? The Council is not demanding intensification without providing the tools to enable that intensification to happen.
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Sacha, in reply to
Poorer New Zealanders have been hurt by artificially restricting something New Zealand has a lot of
Money.
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You mean many of the things that are proposed for the Unitary Plan, then?
I do. It seems like a step forward.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
It seems like a step forward.
Well, it will be if National can butt out and let Auckland find its way. Current rumblings don't give me much hope, though.
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James Bremner, in reply to
Ben, yes the greater fool theory that all bubbles require to grow. People buy something solely based on the belief that someone else, a greater fool, will come along and buy what they just bought for a higher price. Dutch Tulip bulbs etc. Human nature doesn't change.
I think much of the Unitary plan is good, with the glaring exception of the urban land boundary. I don't agree that you either have intensification or more land, you need both.
I think councils should be legally required to look at projected demand for housing in their area and to proactively ensure supply is available through release of sufficient land and consenting of sufficient houses and apartments to meet demand to ensure housing prices remains stable.
Ben you are right about the importance of housing to the banking industry. I am not advocating a policy that would cause a price crash and resulting banking crisis, but one that would result in a modest decline early on and relative stability of housing process over time and as wages and salaries increased over time, the ratio of median house price to median salary would decline. I would target a ratio of median house to salary of 3 times as the goal of the policy. It might take 20 years to get there, but housing is so fundamental to life and family and social well-being, it can’t be left to policies (compact city fetishism, agenda 21 etc.) that have been a proven disaster and so are destructive for the less well off. These kind of polices are so often advocated by limousine liberals who will never have to suffer the consequences of the policies for which they advocate, i.e. Len Brown and his nice lifestyle block, & Al Gore and his energy hungry mansions and Gulfstream V etc.
Sasha, as part of consenting new developments, I would make developers build a portion of the development as attached housing and multi story apartments etc.Here is Tony Alexander of the BNZ from 2011 with his views on what needs to be done. http://bit.ly/12cN2Cp
And into today’s Stuff.co.nz the New Zealand Institute adds their 2 cents worth: http://bit.ly/12cPpFd
It really is not that complicated, Econ 101, demand and supply. Restrict supply with rising demand and price goes up. To stop prices rising, increase supply to match or exceed demand. Any plan, Unitary or otherwise that doesn't comply with Econ 101 is going to be a train wreck, and in this case the less well off are those will be hurt.
Ignoring Econ 101 in city planning is like designing a plane while ignoring the laws of physics, it is not going to be pretty, and you wouldn't to it unless you were either ignorant or subscribed to a cultish theory that was allowed to override reality. -
Supply and demand are factors in house pricing, but they're not the only factors. Nor is it clear how one can control demand when anyone at all can own a house in NZ, and the supply of houses is not limited to what is in Auckland. No government is powerful enough to control the prices in that way, unless they restrict foreign ownership (which I'm not really a fan of, but I can see the arguments for it). What they can do, however, is make the citizens richer (relative to the cost of property), so that they can afford to live in the houses in their own country. They can control the proportion of debt that must be held in a mortgage so that more of the property is actually owned by by the owners rather than banks.
These are macroeconomic steps, though, rather than addressing the concerns of Auckland particularly. Why Auckland is particularly expensive is not something I can explain. I'd say it's because it's a desirable place to both live and work? Make it a more desirable place (which is of course a good), and isn't that just going to become more of a driver of high prices? So I personally like the DUP, because it aims to make the city a better place. But I don't think it will bring prices down. Auckland doesn't have the power to do that. The NZ government might have that power, but it would involve major changes to the entire way that the economy is managed. I doubt the Auckland price "crisis" will be sufficient impetus to drive the necessary change, and instead piecemeal things that sound like they may work, sound like the politicians are taking proactive steps, are all we can really expect.
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Sacha, in reply to
ignorant or subscribed to a cultish theory that was allowed to override reality
like the supply-fixated neoliberalism powering both the NZ Initiative report and the Act-led 'Productivity Commission' which the govt so loves quoting.
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