08 July 2016

Urgent and substantial action needed in housing supply chain

With a 30,000 home shortage in Auckland, Mayoral Candidate Vic Crone says we’re not seeing clear enough progress in the absolute basics of housing supply.

“While we’re distracted with pie in the sky and fringe solutions, Auckland’s average house price romps towards a million dollars,” says Ms Crone.

“There are practical and realistic actions to address housing supply and affordability in Auckland. Some we haven’t started, others we’re not seeing strong enough progress in. These are to:

1. Host an immediate housing summit
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3. Put communities back at the heart of neighbourhood development
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5. Release land faster for development
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7. Get tough on land banking
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9. Speed up consenting
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11. Speed up priority roading and water projects
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13. Create incentives for building more affordable homes
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15. Partner with private capital and social enterprise to also build affordable housing
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17. Align Unitary Plan intensification around key transport modes
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19. Provide user-friendly quarterly report cards on progress
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To support progress, Ms Crone is suggesting urgent moves that include targeted rates for land banking, sunset clauses for Council/Government land, a lean process review of consenting and its digitisation, and measures to ensure more affordable housing mixes. Progress will be driven by user-friendly and comparable housing report cards.

“Suggestions of the Government building for demand are wildly unhelpful distractions. It just doesn’t have the capability or flexibility to deliver the scale and speed we need,” says Ms Crone.

“It’s pretty clear by now that Phil Goff’s big vision for Auckland is to be asleep at the wheel while Wellington runs it. If he’s serious about being Auckland's Mayor, he's got to take off his Labour MP hat and come up with a broader source of solutions. Ideally, that would include levers actually related to the Mayoral job.”

For more information visit https://vic4mayor.nz/policy/housing/

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