Celia Wade-Brown announces innovative housing policy

Announcement at

13:30, The Hub, Kelburn Campus,
Victoria University of Wellington
Wednesday, 11th September 2013

Celia Wade-Brown today announced a comprehensive policy to make affordable, warm, dry housing a fundamental right for Wellingtonians.

"Today I'm announcing a package of measures that will put housing affordability and liveability as key planks of my re-election campaign", said Celia Wade-Brown.

"Wellingtonians deserve to live in houses that are affordable to buy or rent, are affordable to heat, and that ensure they and their families remain healthy. Council has a key role to play in this, working with the private sector, central government, EECA, non-government organisations and other Councils."

The policy announced by Celia Wade-Brown includes:

- Setting minimum standards for rental housing in insulation, heating and ventilation, working in conjunction with Mayor Dave Cull from Dunedin and Student Associations
- Partnering with central government and Housing NZ on better mixed-use housing solutions in Wellington
- Advocating a rent-to-own collaborative partnership to make it easier for people to own affordable homes
- Continuing the initiatives to end homelessness in Wellington by 2020 and the social housing upgrade programme
- Establishing an Urban Regeneration unit in the Wellington City Council to actively foster high-quality and affordable housing approaches in the city
- Streamlining the building consents process to make it easier and cheaper to build pre-approved designs, including innovative open source Wikihouse
- Encouraging more Wellingtonians to take up the incentives available from the Council and central government for insulation and energy efficiency

The full range of policy measures can be found on Celia Wade-Brown's here.

"This is a balanced package that demonstrates my commitment to working collaboratively", said Celia Wade-Brown. "High quality housing is a fundamental right, and we need engagement from across the private and public sectors to deliver the outcomes Wellingtonians deserve."

ENDS

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